Two years ago I knit this hat for Birkie 2013 and I loved it, except for one thing. The fit. I wanted dramatic gradating chevrons, however in order to achieve this affect, I had to ignore two important rules of fair isle knitting- the float length and using 3 strands of yarn in place of two where the contrast colors overlapped. Despite tying down long floats and knitting loosely, my hat didn't have enough stretch for my taste and I found myself not wearing it. I always wanted to revisit the pattern, and it occurred to me, after weaving these double weave towels, that a double knit would allow larger scale patterns, while maintaining the stretch factor. I would also be able to hide all my floats between the two layers, leaving a finished technical back. And as an added bonus, my new hat would be especially warm. Known and teased in my knitting group as the "Swatch Queen", I got started.
The biggest hurdle was finding a fingering weight yarn in multiple shades of purple and at a decent price. As bad as I wanted this hat to come to fruition, I didn't want to spend a lot of money on contrast yarns. I found just that in Quince and Co. And then I got swatting.
The main color is Smoochie from Great Adirondack Yarn Co.
The technical back is simply the reverse of the front. Swatching is complete, and now to tackle the hat.
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