Forget-Me-Not Hat

Back in April when the opportunity arose to create a design for a new Knit Picks yarn, I jumped at the chance without a second thought.  Never mind that I was on the brink of tourist season and I would barely have a chance to think of anything other than trains in the upcoming months, let alone pull something creative and worthwhile from my brain.  It was a great opportunity, so I snapped it up immediately!

The new yarn that I would have the chance to work with is Capra, KP's new merino/cashmere blend that is oh-so-buttery soft.  At the time, there had been an idea in my head that I quickly jotted down on paper and sent off to the wonderful KP Stacey for evaluation.  After I got the go ahead, I spent the next couple months swatching with similar yarns and sketching, waiting on the Capra to arrive on my doorstep.

In the best possible scenario, I would have had about a month to knit up the sample and work out the kinks in the pattern, once I received the yarn.  Hmmm...now that's the key phrase there:  once I received the yarn.  While KP sent out the two lovely skeins of Capra on June 22 and the yarn was scanned into my local post office on June 25 (thanks, delivery confirmation!), our wonderful post office apparently didn't think that I needed to have that package put into my box until July 6th!  

So, I had just two weeks to do everything, which can be fairly standard in the design world, but in the middle of summer when I'm working insane hours keeping tourists happy, this was not the ideal situation.

But being apart of the Capra yarn launch was totally worth it!  This yarn is amazing...it is so soft and wonderful to work with.  And the great thing is, it gets softer as it's knitted up and even softer (can you believe it?!) after blocking.  I chose the color Sea Spray to work with and it's a beautiful icy light teal blue.  I can't wait to order some more of this stuff!

Back to the design...

Building on the concept of the Mayflowers sock, I decided to continue with the cables-in-bloom theme and create a hat in the same vein.

And the Forget-Me-Not hat was born!

Worked from the bottom up, this hat shows off the wonderful cables that radiate from the crown and blossom into flowers as the cables move down the cap.  Since this is a pic heavy post, I'm going to let the photos do the talking!

The Capra yarn has a very slight halo, which makes the hat all the more comfy and beautiful.  I seriously can't wait to get my hands on more of this stuff and make a Forget-Me-Not hat in my own size!

Pattern Details:  

Name: Forget-Me-Not Hat {KP link}{Rav link} by Allison Haas

Yarn:  Knit Picks Capra (2 skeins)

Needles:  Size 5 circular or dpns

Sizes available:  Women's Adult S(M,L)

Techniques Used:  Cables, Decreasing, Bottom-Up Construction, Knit flowers

Notions:  Tapestry needle, cable needle, 4 stitch markers, 12 size 6 seed beads 

Special thanks to my model, Trish...isn't she lovely?