During last year’s Christmas holidays, I spent a good deal of time knitting and experimenting with yarns from my stash. I eventually settled on a simple approach to a basic beanie and matching cowl. What makes this set special is the blending of a solid DK (light = 3) wool with a variegated laceweight silk mohair. Held together, the resulting fabric when you knit is a custom color and it has a soft halo as well.

I realized I’ve been knitting a lot of hats and other small projects leading up to this Christmas and decided to share this pattern for free as I expect lots of folks are looking for ways to cut corners and use their yarn stash to make gift this year.

You will need about 375 yards of DK, and 4mm and 5mm circular needles, and 4 mm double pointed needles (for the hat only). Please note this is estimation only as I was working from my yarn stash.

While I used Patons Classic Wool DK and Sugar Bush Drizzle held together, a variegated or solid color DK yarn would likely work as well without the addition of another yarn. This pattern is designed as a stash busting pattern, so use what you have. The twisted rib stitch will give it a subtle texture even in a solid color. Just be sure to swatch and adjust your needle size as necessary.

To customize your hat, add or deduct multiples of six stitches, remembering that 5 stitches is an inch in circumference before stretching. The total length of the hat will also need to be adjusted as well, but can easily be done as the pattern is so simple.

The ribbing is a twisted rib. For the body of the hat and cowl, I alternated one round of plain knitting and one round of knitting through the back loop of every stitch. It created a subtle but attractive texture and still made for a fast project.

You can access this pattern for free on my blog link text
under the “Free Knitting Patterns” heading at the top.