Knit a Snug Hat with the Pentacap Knitting Pattern

Woolly Wormhead is well known for their interesting hat designs, which often use different construction methods or design elements to make a hat that looks a bit different from the usual beanie.

The Pentacap is a free pattern on the Woolly Wormhead website that is worked from the bottom up with a wide garter stitch brim and a braided accent before you work the body in stockinette stitch.

Because it’s worked in the round you have to knit a round and purl a round to make garter stitch, while stockinette is straight knitting, which is kind of a fun twist for your brain.

Once you’ve worked the body, the top is shaped with five decreases, thus the name of the hat.

It’s meant to be snug and close fitting, but there are a range of sizes available so you can knit a slightly larger hat if you don’t like it so snug or if you have a lot of hair that needs to be able to fit underneath the hat.

The sizes are for actual head measurements ranging from 19 to 25 inches, with the hat itself measuring 16 to 22 inches when knit.

It uses worsted weight yarn and requires knowing how to work a crochet cast on, knitting and purling in the round, a bind off braid and the knit 2 together decrease. (The pattern explains how to do the bind off and it looks pretty easy even if you’ve never done something like that before.)

You can get the free pattern from Woolly Wormhead.

Looking for more fun hats to knit? Check out my review of Woolly Wormhead’s book, Knit Hats with Woolly Wormhead. It is full of all sorts of interesting patterns that are sure to turn heads!

[Photo: Woolly Wormhead.]

A few years ago I wrote a post that was full of patterns for knit mushrooms, but I don’t think I ever did a post that was knitting patterns with mushrooms on them, so today’s the day.

I love the Fungi Beanie from Jacki Bean, which calls for worsted weight yarn and uses duplicate stitch to add the mushrooms and other details. I think the colors she used for the design are tonal/multicolor so it doesn’t use as many colors as it looks like, but you can use whatever red, green, brown and white yarn you have in your stash for those details.

How about some mushroom socks? The Magic Toadstool sock form Stone Knits includes a ring of mushrooms around the leg, contrasting heel and toe and a little more colorwork at the toe for extra cuteness. As shown it uses four colors and comes in three sizes.

Or there’s the Fairy Ring Socks from Katie Green, which have mushrooms of two sizes on the legs, plus a bit of wavy grass. They have a contrasting cuff, heel and toe and some colorwork flecks in the body of the sock as well. This one is available in eight sizes to fit everyone from a baby to an XL adult.

This trippy cowl from Hunt Hand Knits looks like a lot of fun to knit. The Fungus Among Us Cowl is shown using four colors of DK weight yarn, though you can do it with as few as two if you’d rather.

Stitch some mushroom mittens with this cute pattern from Holly C Watson. This design uses three colors, and it’s shown with a self-striping yarn on the mushroom caps, which makes the colors change without you having to do any work. The pattern is charted but it’s a pretty easy repeat. The mittens are one size.

If you don’t feel like knitting mushrooms but still want to give your project a touch of the forest, the Toadstools Cardigan from Julie Taylor may be what you’re looking for. It’s stitched as a plain cardigan worked in DK weight yarn and sized for newborns up to 4 years old. The mushrooms are added with embroidery and the pattern includes the design, which you can trace onto water soluble stabilizer to stitch the mushrooms onto your sweater. Or anything else you want. You can find this pattern on Ravelry.

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