“I’ll teach you all this, in 8 easy steps..”

So the next tutorial isn’t from my brain, or a magazine, or a book. Its a hat, and I got it from Marieke, who runs this website. I swear, its my favorite hat EVER. I have three different ones in three different yarns.

Marieke calls it a “Rasta hat” and thats a pretty accurate description. Its slouchy, thick and warm… and depending on how long you make it (how many rows you knit) it can accommodate dreads or long hair tucked up inside. Its a very simple pattern and if you’re a decent knitter it shouldn’t take you longer than a couple of hours, maybe a day to complete it. Its simple- but the pattern looks so pretty. And not sloppy.

These hats are pretty trendy right now. Nicole Richie’s been spotted in them a lot lately. I’ve always wanted one but have never been able to find one in a store that was exactly what I wanted. And then I found this pattern!

Front and side views, with cuff. You can really see how nice the pattern is in the 2nd photo.

Another cool thing about this hat is if you make it a big longer, you can cuff it too, like I did in the above pictures. I have short hair, so theres nothing to tuck in. Therefore, I can cuff it and still keep the big, scrunchy look of it yet not look utterly ridiculous.

Close ups, no cuff.

This was made by my mother, so she gets credit for how great it looks. The red a regular ol’ red yarn you can get at any Joann’s or Michael’s or any yarn store (‘Cherry Red’ by Red Heart brand), but You can use any yarn you like of course. Real wool, acrylic, cotton, cashmere, mohair, etc. Its your choice.

Like I mentioned, I’ve got three of these. The above red one, then another in a super soft (now discontinued) Wool-Ease by Lion Brand black yarn that has flecks (or “sprinkles” as Jay called them, haha) of different colors throughout, and the one to the left; a crazy soft gray/green brushed ombre yarn by Joann’s (Sensations Rainbow Classic in “Green/Gray”) thats amazing; click here for a swatch. The red looks totally different here, its not pink or watermelon-y at all; its a deep cherry red. Stupid lighting. The green hat came out slightly better, but still the color is distorted. My skin is even green- haha, I’m the Grinch!! Last but not least, the black hat wouldn’t come out well in pictures at all, unfortunately. Which is a shame because its really lovely… I’ll try and get a picture of it and maybe edit this entry at some point.

This particular pattern/hat is beautiful in solid color and ombre yarn. I think it would be really cool in this yarn, actually.

So on we go with the pattern itself. In her words, heres the pattern and materials list.. and since its in metric/Euro style, I converted it to US sizes, my additions are bold:

You need:
- 50 gram mohair in the two colors you want to use (so 100 gram in total). You could do with a little less but since this is weight of a ball… [I chose Schachenmayr Nomotta Hair (color 98) 50 gram and Gedifra Belisana Color (color 7306) 50 gram] (any yarn works just fine, just be sure to realize that different weights an different types of yarn make different size and thickness of hats- wool is going to be different than acrylic when it comes to this)
- needles 9 mm *(size 11 American)
- a sewing needle

Cast on 64 stitches with the two colors, loosely. From here you knit two knit stitches and two purl stitches, starting with the knit stitches and ending with the purl stitches for each row. Continue until you have knitted about 26 cm (roughly  10 inches). Then, knit together two knit stitches and two purl stitches for one row so you will have 32 stitches left. Cut the thread off, leaving a thread of about 50 cm. Take a big needle and pull the thread through the 32 stitches. Pull the thread so you close the top. Handsew the sides together, using the thread from top to bottom. Let the winter come!

All credit for this hat and the pattern goes to Marieke at treats and treasures, which is by the way a great blog with a couple of awesome free knitting/crocheting patterns as well.

Oh- and uh, you can’t knit the brooch

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Cold weather stuff, How-to's, Knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Tags: Knit "Rasta hat" tutorial