Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

So currently I'm trying to only work on one thing at a time. So while I have about 4 things on my mind to do next, I'm trying not to start any of them so I can finish Hester Willa's matchy pink hat to go with mine.

The story is, I had a couple of skeins of Lana Grossa Pashmina yarn that I bought before for a project which it turned out to be the wrong color for. So I thought to myself, this is really nice yarn, but it's really only enough to make a couple of hats, and who is going to wear an eye-searingly pink hat? Well, I decided I would, so I made myself a pretty little cabled hat. I love making cables though my impatient nature means this is really only the second project I've finished with cables, and the other was also a hat.

But, I am pretty happy with how it turned out:

The full hat

and a detail of the cables.

I decided that my niecey Hester would be the lucky recipient of hat #2! Because I love to be matchy matchy with my Hester.

As for Hester's hat, I have finished the ribbing and am just on my 3rd row of the cables portion. I twist the cables every 5th row...oops, or did I do every 4 rows on mine? But I started on the wrong side to do that... well I guess I have time to fix it.

Full hat so far

and a detail of the ribbing.

A few more details: I'm using size 6 wooden needles that Clementine and Hashbrown gave me years ago, 2x2 ribbing and the cables are 4 sts with 3 sts of purling in between each.

Pattern

This is barely a pattern, but it was requested so I'll explain the best I can. I just made it up after doing a small swatch to test my gauge.

Again, the specific yarn I used was Pashmina. I'm sure another similar weight yarn would work just as well, and of course you should always do a swatch. I used size 6 needles.

For my hat, I cast on 116 stitches and each of my cables was 7 stitches so purl 3 and cable 4. Of course this makes 112 stitches. The other 4 were supposed to be extra at the seam although that's probably excessive. Maybe one on each side, so a total of 114. This was all based on my head measurement and my swatch. You may need to adjust somewhat.

I cast on using the "long tail" method (see video here). I then k2 p2 for about 4-5 inches, then switched to my cable pattern.

Cables: row 1: k3, p4 16 times
row 2: p3, k4 16 times
row 3: k3, p4 16 times
row 4: p3, cable4 16 times (note: if you want the same twist direction as my cables, slip the 2 stitches behind with the cable needle while you knit the first two)

Again, this was all me feeling it out as I went. When the hat was tall enough for me to start decreasing I decreased every other row as follows:

row 1: p2 together, p1, k4 16x
row 2: k2, p4 16x
row 3: p2 together, k4 16x
row 4: k1, p4 16x
row 5: p2 together, k3 16x
row 6: knit all
row 7: p2 together, k2 16x
etc.
until you have decreased to very few stitches, then you cinch them together and sew up the seam and you're done!

For Hester's hat I cast on 93 sts, her head is 18" around. My pattern is 91 sts with 2 extra for the seam. I haven't finished it yet.

Good luck!