This is my new hat pattern which I’ve been working on over the last few months and is now available on Ravelry.
Working with the wonderful colours available in sock yarns and a main yarn, or a gorgeous solid main and contrast yarn, it uses a brioche stitch to create a distinctive stitch pattern emphasising contrasts or compliments in colour. The great thing is that you don’t need a lot of the contrasting yarn – 36-64 meters depending on which size you do, but it has such an impact.
The Brioche stitch pattern, created by knitting and purling into the stitch below the one on the needle, produces a really nice fabric and you can block this hat to be a slouchy beanie or block it flat to make it more of a traditional beret.
This is before blocking:
and this is after blocking the hat flat:
and this is after blocking the hat flat:
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However you block it, you have to be sure not to stretch the twisted rib band.
The flat blocking and beret shape is my favourite and the crown really shows the stitch pattern and shaping:
I’ve really enjoyed knitting up the samples in a wide range of yarns and they really transform the project:
In this version I used the sock yarn for the band as well as for the crown with an orange handyed 4 ply
This sample teams a midnight blue hand dyed 4 ply with a Regia Colour 4 ply
The charcoal grey Regia really shows off Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in Purple Iris
This is silver grey The Toft Alpaca Shop fine baby alpaca with a vintage pink Hayfield 4 ply
Lang Jawoll Magic with Lana Grossa Meilenweit Colour Tweed – two wonderful yarns that I hope to return to
This is a size small in vintage Emu 4 ply wool and the fabulously colourful Three Irish Girls Adorn Sock Yarn in Nora
Another small, this time in vintage cornflower blue fingering wool from Woolcrest and a pink sparkly hand spun wool.