A quick note on copyright: This pattern took heavy inspiration from Sheila McGregor’s Traditional Fair Isle Knitting. This book is not a book of clothing patterns, but shows a wide variety of traditional motifs and a very detailed discussion of color choice and the overall “look” of a traditional Fair Isle garment. The motifs I use here were taken directly from the book’s section of patterns used in traditional Fair Isle garments, and reading the text of the book gave me the skills to set up these patterns in a way that pleases me. I hope it pleases you.

As the designer of this pattern, I would love to hear your comments on it. If it inspires you to try your hand at designing, so much the better—I’m an engineer, not an artist, so if I can do it, anyone can.

I would also prefer that you contact me and request permission before distributing this pattern to a large group or selling hats made with this pattern. Doesn’t mean I’ll say no, but I’d like to keep track of these things.



This pattern is for a hat, knit in the round, using stranded colorwork. I have a big head, and it fits snugly. Some people that have knit this have found the head to be too deep to their liking--top does flop back a bit. For a shallower hat, just remove any pattern except F (because that chart incorporates the shaping at the top of the head).

What you’ll need:

The ability to do, or willingness to learn: knitting and purling while working two colors, reading charts, working in the round on circular and double-pointed needles, and decreasing.

1 ball each of Peruvian Collection Sierra, in
Dark Indigo (about ¾ ball),
Light Indigo (about ¾ ball)
Oak (about 1/2 ball), and
Chestnut (about ¼ ball)
If you get two balls of the dark indigo and two of the light, it’s * almost* enough to make a pair of mittens as well.

Of course, this is out of stock right now, so you could also go with a light worsted/ DK weight yarn (whatever gets you gauge), with 80 yds of dark blue, 80 of light blue, 50 of a light brown, and 30 of reddish brown. Sierra is a wool-alpaca blend. You’ll want something comfortable against your face.

Size 6 16 inch circulars, or whatever gets you a gauge of 22 st/4 inches.
Size 7 dpns, or whatever gets you the same gauge (I tighten up on dp’s).

Some general notes on this pattern my Fair Isle technique:
If you’re an expert knitter with a lot of Fair Isle experience, this pattern contains way too much information for you. Anything “non-essential” in the pattern itself is in italics, so if you cut and paste this to a word-processing program, you can just cut all that out. You can also cut out these notes.

However, I know lots of people aren’t expert knitters. This was my first experience with doing stranded knitting with more than 2 colors for more than 10 rows, and I figured out a lot of things as I went through by making mistakes. I’ve included various things I figured out in my “oh duh” moments in italics.

Because of this, I think this would be an excellent pattern to try if you haven’t done a Fair-Isle pattern before, since there will be a lot less confusion and ripping out of work than there would be if this pattern was in a magazine with highly abbreviated information. In fact, if you’re interested in Fair Isle but don’t like the pattern, you may want to delete everything EXCEPT the italicized information. Why make all the mistakes I already made?

Some things to keep in mind before starting:

1)I, personally, prefer to knit with my right hand. However, on circular needles, with two-color knitting, I put the "main" color in my right hand and the "highlight" color in the left. I find I make fewer mistakes this way, and so use it whenever I can. If you have a strong preference for either English or Continental style knitting, but can manage to knit with the other hand, I’d recommend putting the main color (in this pattern, it's always blue) in your preferred hand, to see if you like the way it feels.
However, when I got to the top of the hat and began to use the double-pointed needles, I found it easier to hold both strands in my right hand. Although it was slower, I was better able to control the tension this way—and in any case, my left hand is always playing around with the dp’s, making sure they’re under control. So try a whole bunch of different ways, and see what feels natural where. So long as the end result looks nice, it really doesn’t make a difference, does it?

2) There are a few things you can do with all those strands of yarn that you aren’t actually using as you go through. Some people cut the yarn whenever they reach the end of a pattern in that color and then weave it in again when the color is needed. I haven’t bothered with that here, because the floats required for this hat weren’t very long, and I get tired of weaving in ends. However, as you go through with all these yarns, it may be helpful to weave the unused yarn in the first stitch of every or every other row (a good weaving-in tutorial is here. This serves several purposes:
--You won’t end up with long floats that catch your fingers when you put on your hat. This is even more important with items like mittens.
--It’s VERY EASY to pull the first and/or last stitch in a particular color out of shape, or even to pull the several intervening rows, if you’re not REALLY CAREFUL with the tension. By weaving in the unused yarns every row or so, there’s a bit of a “safety net”, and your stitching will look more even from the front. Just make sure these woven stitches aren’t too loose, or else they’ll show through.

3) Stitch markers are your friends. At the minimum, a stitch marker at the beginning of a round helps you verify that it's time to change yarns. You can use stitch markers at the beginning of every repeat, but the lengths of the repeats change depending on the motif, so the annoyingness of moving them around after every motif may win out over marking everything. The pattern will look a little off along the columns of stitches at the beginning and end of the round, since knitting in the round involves working a spiral, not a series of stacked hoops.

Directions:(charts are here (in color) and here (in black and white, if you don't have a color printer)

Cast on 120 stitches with the dark indigo yarn with the circulars, and join without twisting.

Ribbing: To set up the ribbing, do one round of k2p2 ribbing with the dark indigo.

--All through the ribbing, all the blue stitches are k, all brown stitches are p. Typically, I hold the main color in my right hand and the background color in the left, but here I do the opposite, because I find it easier to purl with my right hand.

Maintaining the k2p2 rib set up in the first row, and adding colors as required, do 3 rows of dk. indigo/ oak (again, that's k2 with the blue, p2 with the brown the whole way through this section), then 2 rows of lt indigo/cedar, then 1 row lt indigo/oak, 2 rows lt indigo/cedar, and 3 rows dk indigo/oak. At the point where two yarns are dropped and two more are picked up, it’s a good idea to wrap the old yarns around the new before starting with the new, or else you’ll end up with a hole at that junction. I believe it’s the same kind of twist you’d do with intarsia, if you’ve done that..

Main body:
Knit 1 row of dark indigo. From here on all stitches are knit.

Follow the charts (again, charts are here (in color) and here (in black and white, if you don't have a color printer), in alphabetical order, with 1 row dark indigo between each chart. Most people knit from right to left, and this is how charts are to be read. Repeat each chart as often as needed to complete the round--30 times for chart A, 10 for B, 15 for C, option #1 (20 for the second option of C if you choose that one instead), 10 for D, 20 for E, and 6 for F.

There are two options shown for Chart C: the first is the one on the actual hat shown, the second is the pattern I would do if I made another hat. Both are okay. On the last chart, F, do left- and right-slanted decreases where indicated by the slashes, one per pattern repeat on the first decrease row, then two per pattern repeat after that. Switch to dp’s as needed.

After chart F is completed, you should have 6 stitches left. Cut the yarn about 12 inches from the last stitch, then thread that yarn through the last 6 stitches and weave in the ends. I typically thread the yarn through twice, then put the yarn down the middle of the hole left behind. From the back, I pull the hole tightly closed and put in a small knot wrapped around the last stitch before I weave in my ends. I don’t know if this is necessary, but it makes me feel worry less about the top opening up.

At this point your stitches may be a little puckery here and there, but between blocking and using a needle to stretch the worst offenders back into place, I found that most of this went away.

Enjoy your hat!




A quick note on copyright: This pattern took heavy inspiration from Sheila McGregor’s Traditional Fair Isle Knitting. This book is not a book of clothing patterns, but shows a wide variety of traditional motifs and a very detailed discussion of color choice and the overall “look” of a traditional Fair Isle garment. The motifs I use here were taken directly from the book’s section of patterns used in traditional Fair Isle garments, and reading the text of the book gave me the skills to set up these patterns in a way that pleases me. I hope it pleases you.

As the designer of this pattern, I would love to hear your comments on it. If it inspires you to try your hand at designing, so much the better—I’m an engineer, not an artist, so if I can do it, anyone can.

I would also prefer that you contact me and request permission before distributing this pattern to a large group or selling hats made with this pattern. Doesn’t mean I’ll say no, but I’d like to keep track of these things.