All profits from the sale of the Olnafirth Headband knitting pattern will be donated to ORCA, a charity dedicated to the conservation of orcas and other cetaceans.

The Olnafirth Headband is knitted in the round using stranded colourwork. The main motif is repeated 5 times and, with minimal shaping, it makes a great beginner project for anyone new to colourwork.

The instructions here make an adult-size headband, although you could knit it on smaller needles to make it for children or teens. This will depend on the tightness of your knitting - make a tension-swatch first two work out what needle size you would need.

The two samples have been knit in J&S 2-ply Jumperweight and Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift, but you could use any fingering-weight yarn. It only needs a small amount of each of the background colours - great for using up your scraps! You could use as few as two colours, as long as they have sufficient contrast (one 25g ball for Yarn A, and another 25g ball for everything else).

If you want to recreate Olnafirth exactly as it is in the pictures, you will need the following yarns:

J&S 2-ply Jumperweight
81 Charcoal (full 25g ball needed)
366 Turquiose
FC52 Mix
1280 Mix
1 Optic White
Shade 66

Jamieson’s of Shetland Spindrift
294 Blueberry (full 25g ball needed)
278 Amber
1160 Scotch Broom
179 Buttermilk
104 Natural White
435 Apricot