Hill Country Hat


Clara Parkes, of Knitters Review fame, has written a number of books. This pattern, Hill Country Hats, is from her The Knitter’s Book of Wool: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding, Using, and Loving This Most Fabulous Fiber.”  It teaches everything knitters need to know about the qualities of fiber produced from all variety of sheep. It’s already known by its acronymn: KBOW.

In addition to being included in KBOW, Parkes has generously released Hill County Hats as a free pattern on her website, also accessible via Ravelry. With the advice of one of my Ravelry buddies, mine are knitted in Brown Sheep Bulky (chocolate soufle, above, and creme, below). It takes an entire 125 yard skein, knitted here with 10.5 needles.  You’ll have about a golf-ball sized leftover.

Hill Country Hat is knit from the top down. Quick and fun, this is basically a two-hour project. Parkes uses a stitch pattern she calls “Hills and Valleys” to create a hat that is cleverly sectioned off  into quarters, with a swirl at the top. My one modification was to increase the number of pattern repeats by one set on the body of the hat, to give it a bit more length. Very cute. Unisex.

I am currently working on a rather large rather boring project and these hats were the perfect interruption.