(EDIT: This blog post was originally written on the 21st April 2017 but I’ve refreshed it for you today)

The Basic Information
Pattern: Vesey Hat
Yarn: WYS Signature 4 Ply
Needles: 3mm 40cm length circular needle, 3.25mm 40cm length circular needle and Set of four 3.25mm double pointed needles.
Techniques: knitting in the round on circular needles and then onto dpns.
Sizes: to fit adult head.

And my new hat design, strangely, was inspired by one knitter’s love of socks!

This knitter enjoys knitting socks for everyone in her life – her family, friends and even friends of friends who have commented on the joy that a handknitted sock can bring. She came into the studio because she has a couple of balls of sock yarn leftover from knitting all these socks, plus some odd half or quarter balls. She told me she really wanted to knit something different with this yarn – perhaps a hat for her adult son.

This *might* have been a few months ago, perhaps even a year, and I’ve been playing with this idea ever since. In that time, I’ve done a few versions and decided in the end that sock yarn doesn’t need any stitch pattern, just an easy knit stitch to show off its own shades. However I had to have a little detail in it somewhere to give it that je ne sais quoi and make it extra special….

And…Woohoo!…The Vesey Hat is finished and ready for you to download and enjoy! It uses sock weight yarn. I used WYS Signature 4 Ply for it and love how the yarn still stripes on the hat. It’s almost double the amount of stitches needed for a sock so the stripes are narrower than they woudl be if you were knitting a sock. It only uses 35g so it’s perfect for the lady who wanted to use up her leftover sock yarn.

And if you don’t happen to have enough leftover sock yarn to make a whole hat, then imagine the joy of coming down to the studio and choosing some just for this project! I love helping knitters with colour choices! And there are so many to choose from in the Signature 4 Ply range. I am also designing a new hat with the remaining yarn, so it’s easy to get two hats out of one 100g ball! I’ll share with you the new design when I’ve finished knitting it!