This design was inspired by a hat I saw in a crowd shot of an alpine event during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC. I only caught a glimpse, but I was instantly drawn to the checkerboard design. Here in Indianapolis, the racing capital of the world, we’re mighty fond of checkered designs.

Skills you’ll need: Knitting in the round, stranded color work, decreasing, ribbing. None of these skills are particularly difficult. If you’ve never done stranded color work, some tips and references have been included to help you along the way.

ERRATA - there is an error on the chart in the contrast color section on row 271. Correction is k2, k2tog, k3. Correction is noted on chart in 3/31/10 version of pattern.