Construct

This is the 2nd design from the new Convergence collection which will be published in the first week of September.

This is a bit of an unusual name for a Hat. It was originally going to be called ‘Build’ after the Housemartins song but I felt the meaning was a little lacking in dimension (truth be told all of the designs were going to be named after songs but I ran out of ideas and instead approached the Convergence theme head-on).

If you want to know whether it’s CONstruct or conSTRUCT to me it’s the former… but that’s the beauty of this name, it could be either and still be apt.

This pattern features a twisting rope like mosaic pattern that’s been adapted to perfectly fit within this space. A majority of mosaic stitch patterns lend themselves to allover patterning but that’s not necessarily something you want with a sideways knit, as that makes for a complex graft and I don’t want to make the patterns to be intimidating. So I played around and experimented to see what I could do within the space that one panel provided. What I came up with also needed to play nice the mosaic knitting ‘rules’ (one pattern breaks them, you’ll be glad to hear) but also with short rows.

Each of the patterns within this collection works on the same gauge AND has the same number of rows in each panel at the brim. They do however had different short rows in the body and different Hat shapes, as the tension of each mosaic pattern is different. They’re not all fully balanced although I did lean towards it but with the other constraints, fully balanced mosaic patterns were nigh on impossible to achieve.

What I really love about this design is the way the pattern feeds into the crown - it’s completely in step with the shaping. These little details are things I always look for and they make me so very happy!

We’re currently working away on the eBook layout and technical editing. The collection is due for publication in the first week of September and as always, the first folks to hear about it will be members of The Woolly Hat Society and Patreon supporters.