Säie Ystävä in Finnish literally translates to ‘Thread Friend’.

This hat was initially inspired by two friends of mine. One is a fantastic Finnish spinner who made the yarn for the purple hat. The other is a fantastic American dyer who dyed the lovely yarn for the silver hat. My first thought was about friendship bracelets, and how you can customize them easily. Here’s a pattern which will work equally well with nubbly-soft handspun yarns or sleek tonal yarns, with plenty of space to add beads, charms, and buttons.

Because this is all about friends, if you buy this pattern and want to do a hat swap using this pattern with a friend, please PM me either their Ravelry ID or their email address and I will send them their own copy, free of charge. Use the savings to have fun picking extra-nice yarn and buttons you know your friend would like to make the hat swap that much better.

The pattern includes instructions for making a deeper brim which can be folded over (for those of us whose ears get cold) and making the main body of the hat a little looser (for more drape, and because some handspun yarns will felt a little over time with regular use). The pattern has both written instructions and charts.

The purple hat was made using handspun yarn. The silver hat was made using White Iris Yarns Full Merino in the Silver Fox colorway.

This pattern uses the following techniques and stitches:

• slipped stitches
• cables
• knit
• purl
• ssk
• k2tog