This Pattern is Retired…but you can (probably) get it in November

I have a lot of patterns! But I also get overwhelmed if I have to deal with them all at once. So I’ve picked 12 of my favorites (the Core Collection) to keep around. Then every few months, I decide on a theme or a technique and make a handful of related patterns (the Rotating Collection) available for a little while (then they go away again).

The other patterns are retired and are not generally available. However, because I know some folks will want them, I make many of the retired patterns available for a few weeks every November. If you want me to tell you when they’re back, subscribe to the mailing list or patreon, and I’ll let you know!

• If you see the buy buttons on this page, you’ve caught it on one of the days it’s available!
• If you don’t see the buy buttons on this page, it’s not currently available.
• If you want to hear when the retired patterns are available (most likely in November), subscribe to the mailing list or patreon, or keep an eye on my instagram.

You know that skein of speckled yarn in your stash? The one that called your name and told you stories of all the fun times you’d have together and convinced you it just had to come live with you? And then once you got it home it changed its tune and resolutely declined to swatch up nicely? Yeah. This pattern is for that skein.

I’ve found that speckled yarns behave best when you give them plenty of stockinette to play with. But I don’t care how pretty a yarn is, I’m still not inclined to knit a whole hat in stockinette. So I’ve struck a little compromise here and worked in some slip stitch cables. I think they actually show off the speckles even better than the stockinette (something about the elongated stitches you get when you slip shows off the little pops of color beautifully).

It feels like the perfect compromise between letting the yarn take center stage and still reminding it you’re in charge!

Oh and just because someone will ask, of course you don’t have to use speckled yarn. It will look great with most anything you care to use. I just found it did a great job of getting my recalcitrant speckles to behave!

The pattern includes the directions for both hats. They’re written in three or four sizes (three for the zig zag one, four for the one with straight lines), and you should feel free to adjust your gauge a bit to fine tune the fit of the pieces. Just be sure that you’re working at a gauge that gives you a fabric you like with your chosen yarn!

I recommend working at something around 5.25, 5.5, 5.75, or 6 stitches per inch, and I’ve included a table to help you figure out what gauge you’ll want to use for your size. With that range of sizes and gauges, the hats will fit a head between 19 and 25.5 inches (with lots of points in between). You can almost certainly make any size hat with less than 250 yards of yarn.