New pattern: Heartwood Hat

It’s one year to the day since I released my Heartwood Cowl design, and at long last it has its companion hat! Introducing the Heartwood Hat, a cosy, deeply-textured beanie in DK-weight yarn featuring an all-over pattern of cabled hearts entwined with ribbing.

I actually started working on the hat design long before the cowl, but got bogged down in puzzling out the crown decreases. After a lot of unsuccessful swatching I put the hat to one side and concentrated on the cowl, and just before that pattern was ready to publish I was struck by a new idea for the hat! Sometimes sleeping on a puzzle takes rather a lot of sleeps before the brain spits out a solution. And here it is: some ribbing, a few twists, and some petal shapes in between.

The Heartwood Hat sample blocking over a balloon.

A tip from my fabulous test knitter Myriam (strickeyhands on Ravelry): if you find your stitches look a little sloppy in the crown decreases section, switch back to your smaller needles.

The yarn I used for the sample is once again from the fabulous Aussie dyer Happy Hank Co. To knit the larger size I used one 100g skein of Classy DK, but you could also use fingering-weight yarn held double, as one of my test knitters did to great effect. Classy DK is a smooth, multi-plied, superwash merino yarn, and the colour, Soba, is a very gentle pale pink. To really show off the complex cables I recommend choosing a solid or near-solid colourway, or some subtle speckles.

Two sizes are included in the pattern, and the larger size is comfortable and slightly slouchy on my 22”/56cm diameter head. It’s long enough to wear with the brim pulled down for cosiness or with a short turn-up.

Skills needed to work this pattern include the Long Tail Cast On (or your favourite for 2x2 ribbing), working in the round, working 2-over-2 cables and a few six-stitch cables, and working decreases. Both charts and full written instructions are included.

Heartwood Hat features:

• a beanie hat knit in the round from the bottom up, with an all-over texture of cabled hearts and ribbing

• two size options are included in the pattern, each using only a single 100g skein

• requires 167 (200)yds/153 (183)m of DK-weight yarn (shown in Happy Hank Co Classy DK)

• choose a smooth, multi-plied, worsted-spun yarn in a solid or near-solid colour

• hat dimensions, relaxed after blocking and unstretched: 15 (18)”/38 (46)cm brim circumference, and 8.5”/21.5cm length from cast-on to crown, to fit 18-20 (21–23)”/46-51 (53.5-58.5)cm head circumference. Sample shown in larger size on my 22”/56cm head

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

Find out more about my Heartwood Hat pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.

New pattern: Beanstalk Hat

Sometimes it takes me a while to get a particular stitch pattern out of my system, and I’ll keep playing around with it even after a pattern is published. Last August I published the Beanstalk Shawl, which was an offshoot of my Ensata designs, and as it turns out I still wasn’t done with leafy lace and half-twisted ribbing! The Beanstalk Hat features the same lace pattern as the shawl, flowing out of the brim’s half-twisted ribbing and easing gracefully into the crown decreases.

You may be wondering why there are three versions of the hat pictured with varying levels of lace-coverage, and the honest answer is that there was a lot of trial and error involved in getting this design finalised, which resulted in three different versions of the hat. I love all three, and rather than publishing them separately, I thought you might enjoy a ‘pick a path’ pattern. The Beanstalk Hat pattern allows you to choose whether to knit a single panel of the lace pattern, all-over lace, or no lace at all. For ease of following your chosen path in the pattern, I’ve named the three versions Spring, Summer, and Winter according to the amount of lacy foliage.

‘Spring’ (single lace panel) in smaller size, ‘Summer’ (all-over lace) in larger size, and ‘Winter’ (plain half-twisted ribbing) in larger size.

For each of the three hats I used a fingering-weight yarn with wonderful stitch definition: Knitcraft & Knittery’s sustainable Australian merino 4ply in the colours Missy Z (muted pink), Sandilocks (rich gold), and Silver Fox (speckled greys). As I was knitting, I really enjoyed how satisfyingly soft the non-superwash-treated merino felt in my hands.

For the two lace versions of the hat I recommend choosing a solid or nearly-solid colour, as the lace pattern can easily get lost otherwise. We (me and a few of my test-knitters) confirmed this after giving more variegated yarns a try, and we all ended up frogging the lace. But because I loved how the speckled Silver Fox colourway looked in the ribbing, I decided to keep going and include a plain ribbed version of the hat as a bonus option.

Skills needed to knit this pattern include the Long Tail Cast On (optional), working lace stitches from charts or written instructions (both are included), working a small circumference in the round, and working twisted decreases in the crown of the hat - I have a tutorial on How to work twisted decreases if these are unfamiliar. Two sizes are included in the pattern, as well as suggestions for customising the length.

Beanstalk Hat features:

• a beanie knit in the round from the bottom up, with optional leafy lace pattern

• choose between a single lace panel, all-over lace, or plain twisted ribbing

• requires 157 (248)yds/143.5 (227)m of fingering-weight yarn (shown in Knitcraft & Knittery Fingering Weight Merino)

• the two lace versions look best in solid or near-solid colourways, while the plain version also suits variegated yarn

• hat dimensions, unstretched: 14 (16)”/35.5 (41)cm brim circumference, and 8 (9)”/20.5 (23)cm length from cast-on to crown, to fit 18-20 (21–23)”/46-51 (53.5-58.5)cm head circumference

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

Find out more about my Beanstalk Hat pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.

New pattern: Fledgling Hat

I’m often drawn to stitch patterns in the shape of feathers or leaves, and I find it oddly satisfying that I can see both in my new colourwork pattern, the Fledgling Hat! I watch a lot of nature documentaries (Springwatch and its seasonal counterparts are a favourite), and the annual unfolding drama of birds raising their chicks never gets old. This colourwork pattern reminds me of both the feathers of the intrepid birds and the leaves of the trees and hedges that conceal their nests. I named the pattern after fledglings, which are young birds on their way to independence, just beginning to venture out of the nest and learning to fly.

I took the initial idea for the stitch pattern from the image below of a Roman floor mosaic. The feathery ‘halo’ just screamed out to be translated into some kind of colourwork pattern, and I was especially drawn to the 3D effect created by the alternating light and dark elements. After a certain amount of tinkering with the scale of the motifs, I decided to add diagonal strokes to the feathers - this has the practical advantage of keeping the colourwork floats nice and short, at four stitches or less (except for one round in the decrease section). The short floats make this hat a fairly quick and straightforward knit, because there’s no need to worry about trapping floats as you go.

Head of Medusa, from a Roman era mosaic tepidarium floor (Museum of Sousse, Tunisia). © Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons

With its short floats and simple crown shaping, the Fledgling Hat is suitable for those new to stranded knitting and willing to give an all-over pattern a try. You will need to be comfortable following a colourwork chart, as well as working a small circumference in the round. I’ve included quick tips on tension, swatching, and colour dominance in the pattern.

For more information on these techniques, I have a couple of tutorials which may be helpful: Swatching in the round and Magic loop: yes it is!

I used Brooklyn Tweed’s Loft for both samples, and used a little less than half a skein of each colour per hat. The colourways I chose are Woodsmoke for the main colour for both samples, and Artifact and Homemade Jam for the contrast colours. Because you only need a small quantity of each colour, this could be a good project for using up leftovers - in fact, the Artifact shade was a partial skein left over from my Kea shawl (Ravelry link).

Two sizes are included in the pattern, to fit adult head sizes with 20-21 (22-23)”/50.5-53.5 (56-58.5)cm circumference. Each size is shown in the photos on my 22"/50.5cm head: the smaller size (in green) is quite fitted on me, and the larger size (in red) is slouchier. If you prefer a slouchy fit, you may prefer to work a larger size.

Fledgling Hat features:

• a stranded colourwork beanie knit in the round from the bottom up

• all-over stranded colourwork pattern inspired by abstract feathers, and a contrast-colour brim

• requires 90.75 (102)yds/83 (93.25)m of the main colour + 114.5 (140)yds/104.75 (128)m of the contrast colour in fingering-weight yarn suitable for colourwork (shown in Brooklyn Tweed Loft)

• suitable for heathered, semi-solid, or solid colourways

• hat dimensions: 18.9 (21.25)”/48 (54)cm circumference and 7.9 (8.25)”/20 (21)cm length, to fit adult head sizes with 20-21 (22-23)”/50.5-53.5 (56-58.5)cm circumference

• pattern includes charted stitch patterns only.

Find out more about my Fledgling Hat pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.

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This pattern is my contribution to the Operation: Social Justice fundraiser, which unites over 180 fibre businesses raising money for charities supporting equal rights. From 15-31 March I will be donating 20% of sales of this pattern to two charities supporting LGBTQ+ youth: New Zealand's RainbowYOUTH, which provides support and resources to queer and gender diverse youth and their communities, and Melbourne's RCH Gender Service, which provides care and support to transgender young people and their families.