Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Free Seed Stitch Hat Knitting Pattern

by

Seed stitch is one of those patterns that people either love or hate. I really like the texture of it and find it fun to knit.

Most Seed Stitch hat patterns include ribbing at the bottom, but this one from Margo Knits is all over Seed Stitch, with the bottom part a little tighter than the rest thanks to using two different-sized knitting needles.

Head over to the blog for the full instructions.

[Photo: Margo Knits.]

SEED STITCH HAT

Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice

Colorway: Grey Marble Heather

Yardage: Approx. 150yards

Gauge: 16 & 16 rows = 4”

 

Needles:

US Size 6 (4.0mm) 16 inch circular needles

US Size 8 (5.0mm) 16 inch circular needles

5 US Size 8 (5.0mm) double pointed needles

Stitch Marker

Yarn needle

Abbreviations:

CO : Cast on

K : Knit

P : Purl

K2tog: Knit 2 stitches together

P2tog: Purl 2 stitches together

Pm : Place marker

 

Seed Stitch Pattern:

Round 1: K1, P1

Round 2: P1, K1

Pattern Directions:

With Size 6 circular needles, CO:  71 sts, pm, join in the round. (If you want to make this hat for a child size, make a gauge swatch of the stitch pattern to calculate the number of stitches. Stitches must be an odd number for the seed stitch pattern.)

Work in seed stitch pattern until brim measures 2?

Switch to size 8 needles and work in seed stitch pattern until hat measures 7 inches (17.75cm – 19cm) or desired height

Ending with a round 1, on the last round before you begin the decrease rounds, continue in seed stitch pattern until 2 stitches remain. Then purl the last 2 stitches together.

Decrease Rounds:

***Switch to double pointed needles when stitches become difficult to knit on circular needles.***

Decrease round 1: *K2tog, P2tog, rep. From * to end of round

Decrease round 2: *P1, K1, rep from * to end of round

Decrease round 3: *K2tog, P2tog, rep from * until last st, K last st. to end of round

Decrease round 4: *K1, P1, rep from * to end of round

 

Cut yarn and weave end through remaining loops. Pull tight to secure and weave in ends.

Have you read?

Knit a Leopard Print Shawl and Learn about Yarn Substitution

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations. 

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind. 

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca. 

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl. 

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions. 

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic). 

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only. 

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns. 

[Photo: Yarnspirations]