Certain criteria are terribly important when it comes to this hat.

Start with the sheep - North Ronaldsay’s are independent minded sheep who won’t take no truck from anyone. For them, rules are meant to be broken as much as sheep-dykes and fences are meant to be leapt over.

They also have a heritage going back to the Iron Age, arguably even older. Sheep skulls found at Skara Brae from 5000 years ago are very like modern North Ronaldsay sheep.

The flock of sheep that have provided this wool are actually on a little island of Orkney, Isle of Auskerry, inhabited by just one family.

Now to the pattern, and here the vital factor is the definition and concept of ‘gansey’ acknowledged by virtually everyone.
So I’m starting with a great hat pattern that encourages you to ‘do your own thing’, but still enables you to produce a hat that will do the job. I’m going to start with a nice double rib as is found on some gansey sweaters, and then I’ll see what gansey pattern takes my fancy when I get to the body of the hat.

First photo shows the ribbing knitting up nicely. Note I’m using circular needles. The truth is that you can knit gansey jumpers and other gansey items using whatever tools you prefer.

After the ribbing I started off the body of the hat with some moss stitch (what is called seed stitch in USA)

Then I inserted the special Orkney gansey stitch as researched and used by Liz Lovick in her Exhibition Orkney Gansey. It seemed appropriate, since this hat is going to help me survive the temperatures up here, to include an Orkney stitch.

I deliberately knitted the body of the hat longer than in the pattern - this gives plenty of options for really snuggling the hat down round my neck and face to cope with the wind. It is incredibly warm to wear ☺

A quick finish with a couple of tassels and I’ve an essential addition to my Orkney wardrobe in just a couple of days.