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.

This is a companion to Unwavering (the cuffs in the picture at the bottom of this page).

This really shouldn’t be this amusing. It’s just a stripe. It should probably be bordering on boring. But somehow it’s really not. One little stripe racing around the hat makes this whole thing more fun than it has any right to be.

And don’t worry, it’s not hard to do at all! Technically it’s colorwork…but you only do three tiny stitches of the contrast color on each row, so it’s about as easy as it can be. There’s a detailed tutorial to walk you through it step by step if you’re feeling nervous, but I suspect you’ll have the hang of it and be zooming along in no time.

Oh and while we’re talking tutorials, there’s a second one in there on how to make awesome detachable pompoms. It lays out the best way I’ve found to hold pompoms on securely (I hate when they flop around) and let you take them off (or put them back on) in about ten seconds flat. Because while I think the pompom is adorable, I understand that you may not want one every day (or you may want a whole bunch of different ones to swap out as your mood changes…or you may just want to be able to pop it off to wash the hat).

Pretty much the only thing you’ll have a hard time with is picking colors. Team colors? House colors? School colors? Something to match your favorite coat? Do the same background color for everyone in your family and make the stripe and pompom their favorite colors? Use up the last tiny bit of that super precious yarn as the stripe (you only need about a dozen yards)? The possibilities are pretty much endless!

The hat is written in four sizes (castons of 109, 117, 125, and 133 stitches), and you should feel free to adjust your gauge a bit to fine tune the fit of the hat. 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 5.5, 6, 6.5, or 7 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 hat will fit a head between 18.75 and 24 inches (with lots of points in between).

This hat uses between 200 and 250 yards of the main color (that’s the gray in the pictures), and about 10-15 yards of the contrast color (that’s the orange in the pictures). If you want a pompom, I strongly recommend planning for 100-125 yards of yarn for that (pompoms always look best if you use way more yarn than you think you’ll need)!