This is the second in a series of hats designed during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

The complete series includes one hat in each colour of the rainbow, a symbol representing hope during a dark time in our lives, made bearable by the spirit of resilience and fellow feeling of family, friends, neighbours and complete strangers.

Knit in the round in pure wool DK yarn, the fair isle design is a fairly simple one and suitable for anyone starting out with fair isle knitting.

There are two sizes given: medium and large adult, intended to fit a 22” and 24” head circumference. Because of the fair isle pattern, there is very little leeway to adjust the sizes of the hats, therefore care should be taken to knit to the same tension as the pattern.

Any DK wool could be used for this pattern - I used what I had in my stash - Drops Karisma. Each hat took 2 balls of the main colour and 1 of the contrast colour and this included the pompom (which took 15g).

Because of the strange circumstances we are living under, this pattern has not been test knit.