Free Pattern for a Breton Striped Hat

There’s something totally summery about the Breton stripe, which was originally designed for the French navy but was taken over by nautically inspired fashionistas for decades.

Kat from Just Crafty Enough took the stripe as her inspiration for the latest Iron Craft challenge and whipped up a darling striped hat.

It’s a great hat for spring because it’s snug and short, not completely covering the ears. I love that the dark stripe has a bit of sparkle, too, which brings some sass to a classic design. You could of course work the stripes in whatever color you wanted if you weren’t trying for the nautical look.

She also worked some handwarmers in the same striped pattern so check back on her site for those, too!

[Photo via Just Crafty Enough.]

Next Pattern:

From the front, the Simply Me Blouse from NORgardknitters looks like a plain, boxy, garter stitch sweater. The kind of thing you’d want to throw on every day, like the knit version of a sweatshirt.

But when you look at the back, you realize there’s more going on than meets the eye.

This sweater also has a giant pleat on the back, giving lots of volume and interest without making the knitting any harder.

Simply Me is worked from the top down, starting with the yoke being worked back and forth in rows. Extra stitches are cast on at the back to form the pleat (which is crocheted closed when the knitting is done) and the body is joined in the round under the underarms.

But if you know anything about knitting in the round, you know that to make garter stitch you have to knit and round and purl a round. To avoid that this pattern uses short rows so you can still knit every round and come out with garter stitch.

The sweater has a wide boatneck and a cropped, boxy shape with three-quarter sleeves. There’s no edging to interrupt the pretty waves of garter stitch.

The pattern comes in six sizes, to fit a bust from 31.5-33.5 inches, or 80-85 cm, up to 43 to 47 inches, or 110-120 cm. But there is a lot of positive ease worked into the pattern, so if you want less ease you can work it for a larger range of sizes. There are lots of projects on the project page on Ravelry, most of which show it in a solid color, but you can also see ideas for stripes or a fade. It calls for DK weight yarn.

You can find the Simply Me Blouse pattern on Ravelry, where it is available in English, Danish, French, German and Norwegian.

[Photo: NORgardknitters]

Take it Easy with a Bulky, Textured Sweater

Use Your Stash on this Stranded Knit Sweater

Book Review – Wilderness Knits: Scandi-style sweaters for adventuring outdoors

Next Pattern:

Comments

Have you read?

Leave a Reply