Stripey Mock Cable Hat

I used twisted stitches and some lovely squishy wool to make this hat for my son. Although it was made for a preschooler, it is stretchy enough to fit me (and my husband—although our son has told him not to wear it, “because you’re gonna stretch it out!”)

5 colors of heavy worsted weight/aran yarn
I use Valley Yarns Berkshire
A—Navy
B—Burgundy
C—Olive
D—Gold
E—Cooper

Needle size 8—or what works best for you (this is one needle size down from the recommended needle size)
Gauge—unstretched, 5 stitches per inch

RTwist: K2tog and then work first stitch again before removing stitches from left needle to the right needle

Cast on 80 stitches using color A.
Join and knit in the round.
For the first 10 rounds:
K1 (P2 K2) repeat until 3 stitch remain, P2 K1

then
Purl one round

Still working with color A, switch to the following the pattern, keeping track of the color changes noted below

Row 1, 2 and 3: P1 (K2 P2) repeat until 3 stitches remain, K2 P1
Row 4: P1 (RTwist P2) repeat until 3 stitches remain, RTwist P1

Color A—10 rows
Color B—10 rows
Color C—8 rows
Color D—6 rows
Color E—3 rows
Color A—3 rows
Color B—3 rows
Color C—3 rows
Color D—3 rows
Color D—3 rows

Or chose a color pattern that you prefer.

End on a row that does not include twisted stitches.
Turn work inside out and do a three needle bind off, so that your tube looks like a rectangle. Using the tail of the yarn, thread into a yarn needle and attach one corner of the rectangle to the other corner—the side where you started the bind off.

Weave in ends. Flip up brim.
Enjoy your nice warm hat.

Hint: Before I switch colors, I used the Philosopher’s Wool technique of weaving in Fair Isle to “catch” the new color of yarn in the last knit stitch (before the color switch). This secures the yarn so that your tension stays even at the color switch. This is the Third Stitch in the video.