New pattern: Carrot Top

My latest pattern is now live: the Carrot Top hat! It's a super-cosy cabled beanie, inspired by the awesomeness that is red hair (think Pippi Longstocking and her epic plaits). I'm really pleased with the way the cabled plaits 'grow' out of the ribbed brim:

I made one for me - extra long so I can wear it with a pixie point, or with the brim folded up...

 

And one for Willie, which he's been wearing non-stop since I finished it! :)

Cables not only give extra warmth from their thickness and air-trapping pockets and folds, they look a lot trickier to knit than they actually are. As I discovered when I made my Beatnik jersey last year, cable charts make knitting cables very intuitive - you can see on the chart which direction your cable cross will go, and the symbols tell you which stitches need to be knitted or purled. Much easier (for me) than lists of acronymns. Colour-coding the different kinds of cable crosses is also a sanity-saver, which I used in the charts for Carrot Top.

My orange hat is in Malabrigo Rios (colour 'Glazed Carrot', teehee), from Little Country Wools, and Willie's brown hat is in Three Irish Girls Galenas Merino (colour 'O'Donnell'), which he picked out from the HRYC stall at the Wellington Underground Market last month.

It's been seriously cold in Wellington lately, so new warm hats are very timely indeed!