Knitting Projects: Another Cabled Hat

When I had finished the cabled hat for my sister, I made the mistake (or did I?) of wearing it out a couple times.  It was just so warm, and my husband was just so complimentary of it, that I decided to make one for myself, too.  I didn't finish it until just AFTER my family went back home, so my sis and I never had matching hats during the trip.  It's probably better that way.  Read on for more details and photos.

For my hat, I had a hard time deciding on the color.  I fell in love with some heathered, jewel-toned alpaca yarn at my favorite shop, but it was too fine and too expensive.  I wanted my hat to be warm (wool), with a bit of fuzziness to it (mohair? alpaca?).  I ended up finding the perfect thing - a Bergère de France "purs mérinos francais" in "Tourterelle" which means "turtledove", the perfect name for a Christmas-time hat.  The label says the yarn comes from Arles, which is a city just east of here.  This yarn was a little bit too light-weight for the pattern, so I paired it with Lang Yarn's Superlight Alpaca (a Swiss company, website in German here).  This added just the right amount of fuzziness and weight.  Because one of the yarns was relatively local, I consider this hat a cool southern France souvenir.  Here is the link to the pattern.

As an added bonus, my husband surprised me with a new wool scarf for Christmas, which is almost the exact color of the hat - they go perfectly together!