The Toronto Toque depicts Toronto’s unofficial mascot, the trash panda, also known as the raccoon!

Toronto is our hometown and the place where we both currently live. We see our fair share of raccoons, so when I sketched out the raccoon face chart, I knew I had to name this hat after Toronto.

This hat is knit in the round from the bottom up. As it uses two colours of naturally coloured yarn, it’s the perfect pattern to knit with precious farm yarns.

Level of Difficulty: Medium

Sizing: Toddler (Child, Adult)

Yarn:
Worsted or aran weight yarn 100% natural coloured wool from Twin Oaks Farm

MC: 120 (130, 150) m / 130 (145, 165) yds

CC: 35 (40, 45) m / 40 (45, 50) yds

(sample shown in Twin Oaks Farm worsted weight yarn MC in grey and CC in brown)

Yarn alternatives include:

• Garnstudio DROPS Nepal
• Estelle Highland Alpaca Worsted
• The Fibre Co. Cumbria

Needles:
3.0 mm / US 2.5 40 cm / 16” circulars for ribbing
4.5 mm / US 4 40 cm / 16” circulars and dpns, or size required to get gauge

Notions:
Tapestry needle
Stitch markers

Gauge:
25 sts and 20 rows in stitch pattern = 4” / 10cm

Stitches Used:
K: knit
P: purl
cdd: centred double decrease (Slip two stitches to right needle as if to knit them together, knit the next stitch, then insert the left needle from left to right into the two slipped stitches and pass them over the knit stitch).

Tip:
Use stitch markers to mark the pattern repeats.

Keep your floats from getting too tight by pausing to space out the stitches on the right needle every 5 stitches or so.

For MC to be dominant, hold the strand of MC yarn to the left and under the strand of CC yarn.

Use grey as MC and brown/black as CC for a classic raccoon colour.

To make the hat depict red pandas, use white as MC and red or orange as CC.