Cold enough to need a hat? Well there’s knitting reasons aplenty to be cheerful about that! Here’s just a few of mine. What are yours?

1. Lots of colours!
2. A great way to use up small scraps!
3. How cute is that crown?

This pattern is graded in a wide range of sizes and a pattern can be worked in palettes for unisex appeal. The hat is worked from the bottom up in the round.

Pattern contains

• Pattern is charted only for the colourwork pattern on the rise of the hat. The crown decreases are both written out line by line and charted.
• Links to tutorials for cast on method and other useful techniques.
• List of links for better colourwork, ideal if you are new to the skill

Yarn
This hat is designed for DK or light worsted weight yarn (WPI 11). You will need six colours with one being a background colour to knit this as written. But fear not - only scraps are required for the contrast colours and only 2 are ever worked at once. Some testers used more colours and some fewer.

I used Adriafil mirage DK which is a wool/acrylic mix for ulitmate washability and wear. Any wool or acrylic yarn or mixed fibre should work for this one and some suitable alternatives are listed above.

Skills

• Knit and purl
• Knitting in the round
• Simple stranded colourwork with a max of 2 colours per row. There are some long floats in some rows (link to tutorial for twisting your yarns supplied)

Sizing

Sizes given are finished hat circumferences (age/size bands are for guidance only - always take a head measurement before choosing a size). Choose a size approx 2in/5cm smaller than your own head to fit as modelled. Stranded knitting is not as stretchy as ribbing or plain stockinette; if you fall between sizes you may prefer to alter your gauge marginally to give you a little more room or choose the larger size.

Lengths are adjustable and guidance is given on adjusting them if required.

6 months – 4 years 38cm/14 ¾ in circ
4 years – adult S: 45cm/17 ¾ in circ
Adult M-L: 53cm/20 ¾ in circ
Adult XL: 61cm/24 in circ