A Hat Inspired by the Mountains it will be Used On

Last Christmas in Iowa I offered to make my brother a crocheted hat. A beanie, specifically, because that’s what snowboarders wear.

Snowboarders can be pretty serious about their beanies.

{Jeff wearing the hat. Jeremy has a bigger head than either of us. When I wear it, it comes down over my eyes.}

Jeremy took me up on the beanie offer and made his specifications: red on top, then blue, then charcoal. He picked out the yarn himself at Jo-Ann’s: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky in Charcoal and Medium Blue and Deborah Norville Serenity Chunky in red ochre. I’m amazed I know what the red one is, because Wesley LOVED it and tried to eat it at every opportunity. Wesley did away with the label a long time ago.

Jeremy requested that the hat depict his very favorite thing, mountains. That it match his snowboarding gear (blue and red). That it have a puffy yarn puffy thing on top made of all three colors. That it have a fleece ear lining for comfort.

Thus it was that this rather epically warm hat was made.

The color changes are made by carrying both yarns along as you crochet (i.e. tapestry crochet). I carried 2 strands of red or blue or gray the entire way, even if I wasn’t changing colors within a row, because I wanted the whole thing to be the same thickness.

I used a size L hook to do this. Even so, the hook was almost too small for 2 pieces of chunky yarn. It’s a thick hat. Sturdy. Squishy. I dare say this hat will take Jeremy comfortably through negative temps with no problems.

This was my third try making it. Totally my own pattern. I think I got it right this time. Can you see the ribbing on the bottom? It’s hard to see. It’s crochet-in-the-back post faux ribbing, i.e. 2 stitches regular, 2 stitches back post, repeat around.

The pattern (it’s a graph) is uploaded in case anyone would like to try, and is located here:  Mountain Beanie – Excel or Mountain Beanie – PDF. It doesn’t have much explanation, just shows how many stitches in each repeat and the colors, and the number of stitches around for each of the 28 rows. My notes on carrying yarn and the ribbing are in the post. If anyone has problems with it, let me know!

Now to mail it to Jeremy.

Update: Added links to explanations of color changes for crochet, below.

By the way, when I didn’t like my color changes on Draft 1, I went to the Interwebs, and came up with a list of articles how to crochet color changes the right way. I’ll update my other post with the chart with these.

How to Crochet Using a Chart or Graph (includes color change)

Tapestry Crochet – right or left hand color changing. From Carol Ventura, who’s written tapestry crochet books.

Color Changing from About.com

How to Switch Colors and Use a Chart – Crochet by April Draven

An interesting yarn-joining/color-changing technique. Russian? Maybe.