Personalized Name Winter Toque Knitting Pattern

Looking for a knit gift with a personal touch? How about knitting a hat with the recipient’s name on it?

This simple hat from Fox and Pine Stitches would be lovely all by itself, but you can make it, like, 50 percent cuter by adding an initial, monogram or even a full name (as long as it’s a short one!) to the body of the hat.

The letters are added with duplicate stitch once the hat is finished, so you can stitch a bunch of these up and then decide who you want to give them to and how you want to embellish them.

I love the look of the lettering matching a pompom on top, but you should go with what’s in your heart.

The hat includes sizes for newborns, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months, 1-3 years, 4-12 years and adult women.

The pattern calls for Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick, but you can use whatever super bulky yarn you have on hand. The only skills you need for this one are knitting, purling, working a knit 2 together and doing duplicate stitch.

Get the free pattern from Fox and Pine Stitches.

If you’ve never done duplicate stitch before, it’s actually pretty easy. It’s a method of adding graphic designs to the surface of a knitting project by literally sewing over — duplicating — the stitches below.

Duplicate stitch, also known as swiss darning, is a fun and effective tool to have in your colorwork arsenal. There’s a good tutorial at Purl Soho where you can learn the basics.

Check out more patterns using duplicate stitch: the Shape of My Heart Scarf, and this watermelon cushion are both good uses for it. And check out how a little bit of duplicate stitch makes it easier to give your kilt hose a tartan look.

[Photo: Fox and Pine Stitches]

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If you’re looking for a fun project to play with brioche knitting, check out the My Buddy knitting pattern/recipe from Casuarinagirl on Ravelry.

This project doesn’t include a brioche tutorial, so it’s good to know the basics, including how to increase and decrease, but you can always practice on a swatch before you start the project if you want.

The design is meant to be flexible for the yarn you have and what size and shape of project you want to make, from a skinny neck scarf to a asymmetrical triangle or a more classic triangular shape.

The shape you end up with will depend on how often you increase (and then decrease on the other side). The pattern mentions increasing every fourth, fifth or six row (and the one shown increases and decreases every sixth row) but you can do it even more or less often depending on the shape you’re looking for an how much yarn you want to use.

You can work to whatever depth you would like, or use almost half of the yarn you have set aside for the project and begin decreasing.

When it comes to yarn, she used three strands of yarn held together to make a super fluffy shawl, but you can work it with whatever yarn and needles you like to make a wrap that’s all your own.

If you are new to brioche (or to increasing and decreasing in brioche) it might be a good idea to make a little scarf or head wrap first before diving in to the bigger pattern, just so you’re more comfortable with the technique. Or just give it a go; nothing about brioche knitting is that difficult. (But you might want to use a lifeline because I find brioche hard to rip out or fix mistakes in properly.)

You can grab the free pattern for the Buddy Wrap on Ravelry.

[Photo: Casuarinagirl]

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