Wandering Cables Beanie

  For Christmas this year I decided to give myself the gifts of a few volumes of Vogue's Stitchionary.  Looking through the Cables volume this pattern jumped out at me and I decided to make a hat with it.  Since it's December and cold here in Oregon, I went with aran weight yarn to make it nice and warm!  The yarn itself is a bit boring in my opinion, but my local yarn store is rather limited in aran options, so what are you gonna do?
  Before I get started I should warn people that this pattern has very little stretch to it.  I highly recommend knitting a test swatch first to confirm your gauge, and know the measurement of your target head circumference.  You can, of course, block the hat to stretch it a bit.  However, since the idea here was to create a very warm hat for some seriously chilly days, I think stretching your stitches apart is best avoided if possible.  So if you think you need to tweak size, add or subtract by multiples of 12 stitches or even change your needle size.

Materials Needed:

• US #8 circular needles 22" (or DPNs)
• Approximately 88 grams of aran weight yarn.  I used Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in Extra Creme Cafe
• Stitch marker
• Cable needle
• Tapestry needle for weaving in ends
• Measuring tape

Skills Needed:

• Casting on
• Knit
• Purl
• 6-st RC = Slip 3 stitches onto cable needle and hold to back of work, K3, then K3 from the cable needle
• 6-st LC = Slip 3 stitches onto cable needle and hold to front of work, K3, then K3 from the cable needle
• 5-st RC = Slip 2 stitches onto cable needle and hold to back of work, K3, then K2 from the cable needle
• 5-st LC = Slip 2 stitches onto cable needle and hold to front of work, K3, then K2 from the cable needle
• SSK
• K2tog
• Weaving in ends

  Like I mentioned before, I highly recommend test knitting a swatch.  In the cable pattern, my gauge was 26 stitches and 31 rows equaled 4 inches.

  Begin by casting on 108 stitches.  I used the long tail cast-on.  Place your stitch marker here and join in the round.

• For about 8 rows *K2, P2* repeat to marker

  This should give you around 1.25" of ribbing.  Now begin the cable pattern.  From here on out it's just knit stitches.

• Rows 1-4: Knit across
• Row 5: *6-st RC, K6* repeat to marker
• Rows 6-9: Knit across
• Row 10: *K6, 6-st LC* repeat to marker

  Repeat this pattern for approximately 5 inches, which will give you a total of 6.25 inches from your cast-on.  Be sure to end your pattern on a cable row!  My hat ended on a row 5 with a right twist cable.  Next comes the crown where will we begin our decreases.

  Since we don't want our pattern to be twisted at the very top of the hat, I used alternating left and right leaning decreases, as well as moving the decreases around within the repeating pattern in order to avoid an obvious crease.  In addition, I added one more cable in the crown to keep the pattern going all the way to the top.  

  To be honest, I accidentally messed up the cable row in the decreases by twisting it the wrong way.  I was planning on continuing the alternating left/right pattern.  Since the last cable row in the body of the hat was a right twist, my decrease row cable should have been a left twist.  But I got distracted and made it another right twist. But even though it was an accident, I like the look of the crown.  The last cable has the effect of bringing together two cables into one and then they fade together into the peak.  If you would like to continue the alternating pattern I think that would look great too

• Row 1: *K2, SSK, K8* repeat to marker = 99 stitches
• Row 2: Knit across
• Row 3: *K7, K2tog, K2* repeat to marker = 90 stitches
• Row 4: Knit across
• Row 5: *K2, SSK, K1, 5-st RC (or 5-st LC)* repeat to marker = 81 stitches
• Row 6: Knit across
• Row 7: *K6, K2tog, K1* repeat to marker = 72 stitches
• Row 8: Knit across
• Row 9: *K1, SSK, K5* repeat to marker = 63 stitches
• Row 10: *K3, K2tog, K2* repeat to marker = 54 stitches
• Row 11: *SSK, K4* repeat to marker = 45 stitches
• Row 12: *K2, K2tog, K1* repeat to marker = 36 stitches
• Row 13: *K1, SSK, K1* repeat to marker = 27 stitches
• Row 14: *K1, K2tog* repeat to marker = 18 stitches
• Row 15: *SSK* repeat to marker = 9 stitches

Leaving yourself at least an eight inch tail, cut your yarn and with your tapestry needle weave through the remaining nine stitches.  Weave in your ends and block if needed.  Enjoy!