Scroll down for the story of this design.

Coe Fen is a striking colourwork hat, worked in the round from the bottom up. Use three colours of any DK weight yarn.

YARN REQUIREMENTS (approx)
MC: 100 115, 130m / 110 130, 140yds
CC1: 55 65, 70m / 60 70, 80yds
CC2: 10m / 11yds all sizes
of any DK weight yarn

GAUGE
22sts and 30 rows = 10cm/4in in stocking stitch on 4mm/US6 needles

NEEDLES
3.5mm/US4 40cm/16in circular needle (or two sizes smaller than gauge needle)
4mm/US6 40cm/16in circular needle or size needed to get gauge
DPNs
Also needed: stitch marker

The story of Coe Fen (also a great place for a run in Cambridge)

Gav is not a man who likes handknits. Previous attempts at knitting for him failed miserably. Too tight! Too itchy! Too warm! It was beginning to sound like a page from Dear Zoo. We concluded best if I didn’t knit for him again.

Fast forward marriage and kids, and Gav is still not a knitwear kind of guy. He’s more a ‘hoody and sweatpants’ athletic type. Last year he ran a half marathon in 1h35. Not too shabby for a 40 year old.

Then over the holidays I knit a flurry of hats for the kids and Gav lingered on the sidelines looking in. He commented on how nice they were, how soft, and repeatedly tried them on ‘just to see’. (Not much different from the last time you tried it darling.)

So I armed myself with his favourite colours, black and grey, and began to knit. A splash of yellow, you know, for fun. All in a cheap acrylic to avoid any potential itch factor.

Who is that for? He would ask, sounding a little hopeful. Success at last. Only took me twenty years.