Meet Rilo: A Free Cabled Hat Pattern
Introducing Rilo: a FREE cabled hat pattern!
I fell in love with cable knitting almost 10 years ago now. I'd been knitting for a couple of years, but stuck to basic designs up until Rowan started releasing their 'Rowan Studio' series.
I remember being infatuated with the Cabled Neck Piece from Rowan Studio 7 and heading to my local John Lewis to pick up the yarn with my Mum.
Eight years later, when I started working as a swatch designer in the knitwear industry, I pretty much only knit cables on the knitting machine for eight hours a day. It was painful work (back ache central!) but weirdly satisfying.
When designing the free knitting pattern that I wanted to launch with this blog, I immediately knew that I wanted it to feature cables. I am the cable queen, after all!
Rilo: a free cabled hat pattern
I've been super excited about releasing this hat pattern for a while now. Rilo is a slouchy, cabled hat with a foldover brim and an optional pom-pom (although highly recommended...) It comes in multiple sizes for children, adults and adults with large heads (Finally, a hat my boyfriend can wear!)
Rilo can be made for children, adults and adults with heads on the larger size...!
Rilo can be worn with or without a pompom to suit any style.
The cable pattern travels across the entirety of the hat, yet it's easy enough to memorise after knitting a couple of repeats. It's the perfect hat to practice cabling without a cable needle, since the stitch is so simple to execute. It also uses a long-tail tubular cast on to create a stretchy rib foldover brim that recovers well.
After having recently completed my Status Quo scarf in some very old Rowan British Sheep Breeds Chunky yarn (now, sadly discontinued), I wanted to stick with the British theme, using the gorgeous Blacker Swan by Blacker yarns, which is a beautiful shetland/merino blend. I'm rather excited by the prospect of supporting our local yarn industry by purchasing this British-made yarn, so I hope you'll join me by knitting Rilo in this beautiful yarn this winter.
Rilo is an ideal opportunity to practice cabling without a cable needle, as the stitch is simple and easily memorised.
You can make your Rilo more fitted by knitting the size down. I would usually wear the adult size, but here, I am wearing the child size for more negative ease.
If, for some reason, you don't want to use Blacker Swan for Rilo, you should be able to get gauge with any standard DK weight yarn. Since it is cabled, I would suggest opting for either a solid yarn or something with a subtle tweed effect. Anything too multi-coloured will lose the stitch. Try to choose a rounded, springy yarn for best results.
When you knit your own Rilo hat, please upload any photos that you take onto Ravelry and Instagram using #rilohat. I am so excited to see what beautiful hats you create!
