This pattern is retired and not usually available. However, I make many of my retired patterns available for a few days twice a year, and this is one of those times! It will be available from now through some time on Monday, December 2. Then it will go away again.

In the summer of 2022, I realized that I found maintaining a back catalog of hundreds of patterns overwhelming. I couldn’t do it and still release new things. So I took my old patterns down so I could keep doing new work.

A few favorites have come back, and lots of new things have come out! But the vast majority of the old patterns are retired and are no longer generally available.

However, enough folks have asked about old favorites that I make many of the retired patterns available for a few days twice a year (usually in early summer and around Thanksgiving).

• 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, then it’s not currently available.
• If you want to hear when the retired patterns are available, subscribe to the mailing list or patreon, or keep an eye on my instagram.

Imply verb to indicate indirectly

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

So if I’m going to do a cable, I want to really do a cable. Commit. Go big. Embrace the drama.

But once in a while, that approach can be a little tricky. Big cables sometimes come with big headaches. It can be cumbersome to manipulate all those stitches, and giant cables can make your fabric bunch up in all sorts of irritating ways. But we’re knitters…we’re clever…we can fix it!

The way these cables are built is really nifty. The cable panel is big (a full 18 stitches wide). But instead of making huge cable crosses, you do a bunch of carefully placed smaller crosses (it’s all based on three over three cables…really!) that combine to give you all the drama and none of the headaches.

It’s a fun technique, and one that lends itself to lots of other projects (about two seconds after I finished the hat, I cast on some fingerless mitts to match).

The hat is written in four sizes (castons of 84, 105, 126, and 147 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 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, or 6.5 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 16.5 and 25 inches (with lots of points in between).

This is perfect for you if:

• You simply must know how that cable works
• You want a hat that’s classic…but not at all boring

It’s not for you if:

• You don’t like charts (the pattern has charts)
• You hate swatching (you need to swatch to check your needle size)