A few years back we lived in Germany for a while for work, and we discovered we love going to the sauna. Recently my husband mentioned to me that he needed a sauna hat. “A what?” Apparently this is a thing, that you wear a thick felted woollen hat which, counterintuitively, keeps your head cooler because of the insulation.

Obviously I needed to knit him one.

Thankfully I found this pattern on Ravelry. I had a couple balls of wool that I knew would felt in my stash, but it was a little thinner than the pattern called for. I decided to go with it anyway and just knit the biggest size as a prototype. I got a bit bored on the brim and decided it needed some decoration, so I found a motif and worked it in contrast stranded knitting. At the very top, rather than bind off I kept knitting the last 4 stitches as i-cord, and when it was a few inches long I folded it over on itself and sewed it down to make a hanging loop.

It was obviously pretty giant when he tried it on. I chucked it in the washing machine with a couple towels. I ran it on a quick 30min cycle at 40 degrees, and that was almost too much! It came out really thick and felty (especially the stranded bit). We stretched it over a bowl to dry.

He wore it to the sauna tonight, and it worked perfectly! Kept his head cool, and looked cool as hell too.