Hatch Hat

The chilly weather is here and it's been awhile since I knit anything for my husband, so when I saw Brooklyn Tweed's Hatch Hat in my Instagram feed, I went for it. I purchased the kit because it was a few dollars cheaper than buying the yarn and pattern separately and it came in a super cute box. It looks like you can only purchase the pattern and yarn separately now. Overall, I love how the hat turned out. It would be great for a man or woman and there are plenty of colors from which to choose. The yarn is Brooklyn Tweed Arbor, which is a 3-ply DK finewool. We went for the "Dorado" colorway. The skein was more a shade of forest green than the dark teal it looked like on my computer monitor, but my husband didn't mind.

I was given a heads up by friends who knit that I may have to go down a needle size and that the pattern would be more pages than you would expect. Both turned out to be true. I went down a needle size, but think I could have gone down another needle size (two needle sizes in total) because the finished hat was a bit large on my husband's head. And the pattern is 10 pages, but only two are the actual pattern instructions. The hat is made up of varying rib knits, which were a lot of fun to knit and went fairly quickly.  

The pattern includes two design options for the hat: a folded over brim or a straight brim. My husband wanted the straight brim, which is pictured here. I knit in the continental style and found the description of the cast on a bit confusing. The end goal of the cast on is to have a ribbed edge, so I went with an Italian cast on, which worked perfectly (a video of an Italian cast on is here). If this seems daunting to you and you are making the straight brim version of the hat, you can substitute the more complicated cast on with a regular long tail cast on without messing up the design because you don't see much of the edge when it is straight down.  

If I make this hat again, I may look for another yarn because I got 7 inches out of the first ball of yarn and had to pick up the second ball of yarn for the final 14 rows. Keep in mind that if you make the longer hat with the folded brim, you will definitely need more yarn than I used.

My husband and I both LOVE how this hat turned out. It's become his go-to hat and he wears it every day. I may make one for myself in a different color, so we can match...of course, I'll probably add a huge pompom on the top of mine!   

Happy Knitting!