Beacon: Hat and Cowl Set

Free patterns to start 2021.

Happy new year! This is one year I don’t mind turning the calendar to a new page at all (Yes, I use paper calendars. It’s a whole thing. Highly recommend.). I am looking forward to 2021 and think there’s so much to be excited about. In working on this pattern, I kept thinking about this transition to the new year as a beacon. It feels like there is light leading the way through many of the hardships of 2020. We’re still in the midst of a global pandemic and there are so many issues that need to be addressed, but there’s a vaccine and so much hope on the horizon. 2021 has the potential to be a really good year and I’ve named this pattern set Beacon in celebration of the promise of the future.

Download links for these two PDF pattern files are at the top and bottom of this page.

The Beacon set includes a super-chunky hat and cowl. I include instructions for a hat sized to fit most adults and a cowl pattern that knits up to an approximately 30″ circumference and 11.5″ height. The cowl can be customized fairly easily to your preferred finished dimensions. You can knit the cowl to a narrower or wider width by removing or adding stitches in multiples of 8 or increase the height by adding 4 round cable repeats.

I did knit the cabled pattern on the hat using both US 13 (9.0 mm) and US 15 (10.0 mm) knitting needles. I didn’t have a significant difference in my gauge between those two needle sizes, so if you have US 13’s instead of US 15’s needles, you could likely knit this hat with either without running into a a big sizing issue and needing to buy another set of knitting needles. Pictured below are two hat samples. The body of the hat without the pom was knit on US 13 (9.0 mm) knitting needles and the hat with the pom was knit with US 15 (10.0 mm) knitting needles.

This hat can be knit in about 90 minutes and the cowl took me just about 4 hours to knit. If you’re looking for a quick knit, an easy cables pattern, and satisfying cozy results, this may be a good pattern to kick your new year knitting off with.

Links to download pdf copies of the hat and cowl pattern are at the top and bottom of this page.

~Happy Knitting!

Kara

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