It was the sixth day. My provisions were running low, and my legs were weary, but as the redwoods towered around me, I felt compelled to keep going. Cool breezes from the nearby Pacific sent shivers down my spine, but thankfully I was wearing my North Coast Hat, available in Men’s and Women’s Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large…

Okay. So I’m not exactly J. Peterman, but I do believe there’s a story behind everything we make. I was at Wildfiber Studio’s booth at Vogue Knitting Live Pasadena, when I noticed this absolutely gorgeous yarn:

Made in Turkey, it’s a worsted cotton, self-striping yarn that goes from sea-blue to shades of brown, then back to blue again. At first the color combination seemed kind of odd, but as I stared at it longer, I began to think of the beach. Not the ones here, with bodybuilders and palm trees, but the cool, rocky coastal forests of Northern California, better suited for flannel than a bikini. I knew right away I had to pick this up and make it into a beautiful hat.

Next came the big question – to knit or crochet it? This one was pretty easy. All year round, I see skater kids rocking their thick, knit beanies, whether it’s 60 or 90 degrees outside.

I don’t know how they do it. The first time I wore a knit beanie, I sweat so much I nearly passed out from dehydration. An airy, crochet hat would look cool and keep my head cool!

The Pattern

There’s no shortage of hat patterns on the Internet, but I figured that this would be a chance to flex my fledgling design skills. If I could survive engineering school, surely I could figure this out, right?

First, I measured my head: 22″ all around. (No wonder I have trouble buying hats!) I usually like beanie-style hats to have some negative ease, so they stretch to fit. So, 21″ around.

The listed gauge is about 4.25 single crochet stitches per inch, but I planned to work this in nice, open double crochet. With worsted weight yarn, I usually get abound 3 dc/inch.

So at 21″, with 3 stitches per inch, means that when crocheting in the round, my hat would be approximately 63 stitches around. Starting from a Magic Ring, I would evenly increase stitches until reaching this number, and keep adding rows until the hat was 8″ long.

Here’s the pattern, as I developed it:

North Coast Hat

Yarn: Universal Yarn, Inc – Cotton Supreme Batik

Gauge: 3 dc, 2 rows / inch, using a 5mm H crochet hook.

R1 = 12 dc in magic circle (12)

R2 = Inc x 12 (24)

R3 = (dc, inc ) * 12 (36)

R4 = (2dc, inc) * 12 (48)

R5 = (3dc, inc) * 12 (60)

R6 = (19 dc, inc) * 3 (63)

R7-16 = Dc in all 63 stitches

Fasten off and weave in ends.

I love how this hat turned out! With self-striping yarns, you can never be sure how the colors will arrange themselves, but I’m a satisfied customer. The blues make me think of the Pacific Ocean. The light browns make me think of sandy soil, while the dark browns make me think of a coastal forest. They go well with jeans, hoodies, or whatever else you have in your wardrobe.

I hope you enjoy!