Colourwork Club: Bellfield Hat

The second Colourwork Club pattern is out today! Reminder that if you missed the full club that you can sign up anytime for the pattern only version. You’ll get instant access to the first two patterns, the Brunstane Cowl and the Bellfield Hat, and will automatically receive the third pattern when it’s released on March 27th.

The Bellfield Hat makes a great second stranded colourwork project that will stretch your skills. It features a beautiful snowflake crown, mirrored in a half star motif around the band with falling snow in between. Keep warm and cosy whatever the weather brings by pulling the folded ribbed band down over your ears.

Bellfield’s worked bottom-up with a cosy folded brim and enough slouchy length to pull down over your ears. The contrast colour cast-on is worked using what might become your new favourite cast on for ribbing: an alternating cable cast on. Working bottom-up means you can begin the colourwork comfortably on a 16 or 20” needle and switch to double pointed needles or magic loop once you’ve established your tension.

Bellfield uses one of my favourite yarns for colourwork, Finull PT2. This sport weight 2 ply Norwegian wool comes in a huge range of colours, perfectly balances softness with durability, and blocks beautifully in colourwork. There’s a reason it’s been a beloved yarn of Norwegian knitters for decades!

Finull PT2 is available in neutrals, solids, and heathers.

In comparison to the first pattern in the Colourwork Club, the Brunstane Cowl, the colourwork in Bellfield is a little more challenging: the pattern repeat is larger, so you might have to focus on the chart more; there are slightly longer floats of 6, and on one round 7 sts; and the crown shaping is incorporated into the colourwork. There’s also a large section in the middle of a very simple repeating pattern, in which only alternate rounds are stranded, so you’ll have a chance to relax. That snowflake crown is totally worth the effort!



Whether you add a pom-pom is completely up to you. Why not try these cute new pom-pom making tools we just got in from Loome. They can do tassels and weaving and friendship bracelets too! 

Tip: keeping your place in a larger chart

If you find it tricky to keep track of which row of a chart you’re on you can use tape or a sticky note to mark the current row. My big tip is to cover the rows above the one you’re working on, instead of the rows below. That way you’ll be able to check that your stitches are lining up with the previous rounds the way they’re intended to.

Nervous about the crown shaping? We’ll have a post focusing on that next week if you want to knit up to there and join us back here then.