Hatalong No. 5 PREVIEW - KT's Slow Closet

Fringe Hatalong No. 5 PREVIEW

If you know anything about me, you know I love Fall and I love cables, and I think the two go together like peanut butter and jelly. So in plotting out the Fringe Hatalong Series patterns, naturally I wanted the October hat to be cabled. This month’s pattern been written just for us by one of my favorite designers, and while it’s striking and incredible and intricate-looking, it’s doable even if you’ve never done cables before. I promise! We’ll be working from a chart, so if you’re new to charts take a minute to read through my notes about that from the Hermaness Worsted intro.

I’ll reveal the hat and post the pattern here next Thursday, October 29th. Meanwhile, let’s gather our yarn!

Recommended yarn: The pattern is written for The Fibre Co’s new Cumbria, which is a really special yarn. It’s a worsted-weight blend of 60% Merino, 30% Masham and 10% Mohair. Merino, of course, is incredibly soft. Masham is a British longwool that’s a natural light grey, which creates really beautiful, muted colors when it’s overdyed. And the Mohair gives it a nice bloom when it’s blocked. So it’s a yarn with loads of touchability as well as great stitch definition. I really recommend trying to get your hands on a skein of Cumbria for this if you can. Ask for it at your local yarn shop.

Suggested substitutions: Cumbria is 238 yards per skein, and the hat does use most of that (allowing enough for swatching if you’re into it), so if you’re substituting, make sure you’ve got equivalent yardage. Cumbria’s recommended gauge is given as 18-20 sts per 4 inches in stockinette stitch on US6-8 needles. Because cables knit up more tightly, this pattern’s gauge is 20 sts per 2.75 inches on US6. But you want to start with a yarn with a similar base stockinette gauge to Cumbria in order to get similar results, so consult the ball band on whatever yarn you’re considering and look for that 18-20 sts on US6-8 range. Any nice lofty, neatly-plied, worsted-weight yarn will give you good stitch definition for the cables, but the fabric will be a little bit different from Cumbria’s fiber blend, depending on what you choose. Some good alternatives suggested by the pattern designer — if you’re stash-diving or can’t get Cumbria — would be Brown Sheep’s Lamb’s Pride Worsted, Green Mountain Spinnery’s Mountain Mohair, Fancy Tiger’s Heirloom Romney or Istex’s Lett Lopi.

I do recommend sticking with solids/heathers/tweeds to allow the cable pattern to really shine; variegated yarns will compete with or even blot out the appearance of the cables.

So get your yarn lined up and be ready for the big reveal next Thursday! And keep those #fringehatalong posts coming.

PREVIOUSLY in the Fringe Hatalong Series: Laurus by Dianna Walla

18 thoughts on “Hatalong No. 5 PREVIEW”

cannot wait! Thank you! I’ve done every one of the hatalong hats so far!

Fun! I will check my stash. I wouldn’t recommend Lopi if you’re making a hat for a bald guy, though. It’s itchy!

The perfect project! That particular blue – ah! Makes me happy just looking at it. I’d like to report – for those of us with no yarn shops close by – that Web’s Yarn does have Cumbria. At least for the moment… ;) Can’t wait!

Nice to have a yarn picked out. I did check and 2 LYS shops in Portland carry it. I am liking color Castlerigg so far:)

Oooh, I think I may finally be able to join the hat KAL. Cumbria sounds intriguing so I just may need to visit a few of my LYS this weekend. : )

I am so excited to finally be able to join you hat KAL. Unfortunately I can not find Cumbria in Ontario. (at least not any of the stores in my area that are stated as carrying it on the yarn website) I settled for Berroco Ultra Alpaca. Can’t wait for next Thursday

Pingback: FO: Laurus set | ready to knit

Cumbria looks gorgeous – I’ve been thinking about it every time I go to my yarn store, and now I have an excuse to try it out! I look forward to seeing the pattern.

I bought Scafell Pike-nice natural. Perhaps this will be my first holdiday knitted gift. They had every color: http://www.knit-purl.com/products/cumbria?variant=5011346116

Hmmm, I’ve got some opossum yarn I’m dying to try cables with. Maybe this is the hat!

Yay, I have a skein of Cumbria I bought at Woolfest this year! I had got it lined up for a Skiff hat but I am definintely going to wait and see what’s revealed next week now :) It is really lovely yarn.

Just ordered my Cumbria and am excited to participate in my first Hatalong!

I can’t wait to see the next pattern–love me some cables! I also have a skein of Heirloom Romney sitting in my stash that’s been waiting for the perfect project and I think that this might be the one!

P.S. Thanks for sharing in your Elsewhere post the link to the Craft In America episode that I had left on your Slow Fashion October post… I hope other crafters get a chance to watch and are as inspired by it as I was!