On the Baa-ble Bandwagon

I don’t usually jump on knitting bandwagons – although I do Hitchhike on them sometimes. But when I saw this adorable pattern, I had to make an exception.

With the weather in London growing colder, and my faithful Who hat not up to the task, I knew I had to whip something up. I chose a warm worsted yarn, made even cozier with colourwork.* Enter: the Baa-ble hat!

This snuggly creation features a sheep motif. All knitters and crocheters love sheep. It’s just a fact. I used warm, tweed-y yarn, and paid extra-special attention to the colour dominance to help the sheep really ‘pop’.

I used the recommended needle size (I don’t swatch for hats!) and found the ribbing to be kind of loose and floppy. Disappointing! As I was working on circular needles, this wasn’t obvious until I had completed an inch or three of colourwork, so I decided to rip back and reknit on smaller needles once I had completed the rest of the hat. When I tried to rip back… nothing happened! The yarn was so ‘sticky’, it wouldn’t unravel, not matter how much I snipped and tugged. Oh well – I made the best of it. Using a 3.25 needle, I picked up from the front, and reknit the brim in front of the existing brim. When I came even to the existing brim, I picked up a stitch from the original cast on edge, and knit together with my working stitches. This created a doubled brim, nice and cozy.

Finally, I gently felted it. This took about a minute is warm water – as I’d suspected, the yarn felted like crazy! This made for a nice warm hat which kept my noggin warm on the slopes! If you’re looking for a fun colourwork pattern, I would recommend the Baa-ble hat.

*Carrying the yarns, or floats, along the back is almost the same as adding a hat liner as you go. That’s why you often see colourwork on mittens and jumpers in cold climates, where people really need to be cozy!