Penchant

---

Exploring variations on a theme is my happy place. The more I look back on my earlier work, the more I see that this has always been the case. I love to find something fun, then tweak it and tweak it and tweak it, just to see what happens.

For these hats, that meant starting with a pretty little ribbing then setting to work with increases and decreases to make that ribbing wander off in a rather fetching fashion. But you see, there’s more than one way to do that. And it was too hard to pick just one, so I ended up doing two. Because once you realize you can get two different versions of a hat, each delightful and each with a different vibe, just by changing how you stack up your increases and decreases? Well it’s hard not to go ahead and do exactly that.

Restraint was never my strong suit!

And speaking of my scandalous lack of restraint, these hats are especially well suited to further adornment. When I was done knitting, I used duplicate stitch to doodle all over mine (you’ll see that in some of the pictures). If you happen to find yourself wanting to do the same, check out the Penchant Expansion Pack, which includes this hat pattern, explores duplicate stitch in general, and covers six options for adorning these hats in particular.

---

General information

This 20-page pattern includes information for both hats.

Skills & scope

The actual knitting is surprisingly simple. You'll start the brim with a simple little rib, then set to work making that rib wrap round the sides of the hat, then finish everything off with some of the loveliest decreases I ever did see.

I embroidered on mine after I was done (you can see that in several of the pictures). Just to be super clear, this pattern covers the hats, not the embroidery. If you want the embroidery instructions too, you want the Penchant Expansion Pack, which includes the hat pattern and a lengthy primer on duplicate stitch and specific instructions for embroidering on the hats!

The pattern uses charts, so you will need to know how to follow a knitting chart.

Yarn, gauge & sizing

The hat comes in four sizes (from a 72 stitch cast on to a 120 stitch cast on) and is written for five gauges (from three and a half to six stitches per inch in half stitch increments). That means you can use just about any weight of yarn from fingering up through worsted, and there will be a size to fit pretty much anyone's head. Basically anything that will give you a fabric with a drape you like somewhere in that range of gauges will work.

The hat in the pictures took about 175 yards of sport-weight yarn. If you're working with thinner yarn, 250 yards is a safer bet.

Tools & supplies

You’ll need needles that let you work in the round (circulars or DPNs) in whatever size lets you get a solid fabric with your chosen yarn plus the general knitting tools you need for most projects (scissors to cut your yarn, a darning needle to weave in ends, the occasional stitch marker or bit of scrap yarn to hold stitches).

---