September Whiplash: hat

Materials:

• three skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca 100% alpaca yarn
• size US 8 12" circular needle
• size US 8 double pointed needles
• cable needle

This project encompasses a lot of firsts for me. This is the first thing I've knit for my husband, my first try at knitting cables, and it's also my first experience with alpaca yarn. The expert at my neighborhood yarn store said that alpaca is actually warmer than wool, plus it is much softer and less itchy than wool, making it the perfect choice for a Minnesota winter hat. I modified this chunky cabled hat pattern to be knit with two strands of Blue Sky Alpaca yarn on size US 8 needles. I started with 2 inches of K2P2 for the cuff and added 2 iterations of the cable pattern (for a total of 88 stitches) to make the hat large enough.

The pattern knit up super quick with the circular needles. I really recommend using circular needles for hats until you need to start decreasing at the top of the hat - sometimes when I use DPN I can tell where the knitting was separated on to different needles because those stitches are a little wider than their neighbors.

This project is an entry in the skill category of the September whiplash.