by Nicolette Kernohan (The Knitting Squirrel), rewritten in plain language for a beginner knitter
🧶 One size · fits a 22″ head · grey + terracotta · your first colorwork
How this hat is made
Knit in the round from the brim up: a stretchy ribbed brim, a plain grey body with two terracotta stripes, then the main event — a band of stranded colorwork where you knit with both colors at once to paint six eight-pointed Norwegian stars around the hat. The crown is decreased down to 6 stitches and cinched shut. No seams, no purling after the brim, and the whole thing is a fast knit in DK yarn.
This is the perfect first colorwork project: the stars sit in one 15-round band, the floats are short, and if a star goes wonky, it's a hat — you're never more than an evening from the finish line.
What you need
Yarn (DK weight): Debbie Bliss Rialto DK, 100% superwash merino — Main color (MC): 23033 Mid Grey · Contrast (CC): 23032 Terracotta. One ball of each is comfortably enough; any DK that matches gauge works.
Needles: 4.5 mm — a 40 cm circular (the short length matters; a hat won't stretch around a long one) and a set of DPNs for the crown.
Notions: 6 stitch markers — one distinctive for the beginning of round (BOR) — and a tapestry needle.
For blocking: a balloon. Really.
Tension (gauge) and size
23 stitches × 28 rounds = 10 cm in stockinette, knit in the round, after blocking. Knit your swatch with the grey (MC) so you're sure you have enough of it for the body.
Finished circumference is 50 cm / 20″, which comfortably fits a 55 cm / 22″ head — hats are worn with negative ease; the ribbing does the stretching.
Stitch school — everything beyond plain K and P
1. Joining in the round
You cast on 100 stitches, then join the circle so you can knit round and round like a tube — no turning, no wrong-side rows.
1
Spread the cast-on around the circular needle. Check the bottom ridge of the cast-on runs smoothly around the inside with no twist — a twisted join can't be fixed later; you'd start over. Check twice.
2
Slip your distinctive marker onto the right needle (this marks the beginning of round, "BOR"), then knit the first stitch of the cast-on, snugging the yarn firmly. You're now knitting in a circle — every round, the marker tells you you've come all the way around.
2. Make one (m1) — the invisible increase
1
Spot the horizontal bar of yarn that runs between the last stitch on the right needle and the first stitch on the left.
2
With the left needle, lift that bar from front to back, then knit into the back leg of the lifted loop (this twists it closed so no hole forms). One new stitch, nearly invisible.
3. Stranded colorwork — knitting with two colors at once
The heart of this hat. In the star band, every round uses both balls of yarn: you knit some stitches grey and some terracotta, following the chart, and the color you're not using simply rides along loosely on the inside. Those carried strands are called floats.
1
Both strands stay attached. Work each stitch in whichever color the chart shows, letting the other strand hang. Many knitters hold one color in each hand; as a beginner, it's fine to simply drop one and pick up the other — slower, but bulletproof.
2
The one rule of floats: keep them relaxed. Before knitting the first stitch after a color change, spread the just-worked stitches out on the right needle so the float has to span their full width. Tight floats make a puckered, shrunken star.
3
Always pick up each color from the same position (say, terracotta from the right of grey) — consistency keeps the strands from twisting into a rope, and makes the star pop evenly. Expect to pause and untwist the two balls now and then. Everyone does.
4. Reading the chart
The chart below is a map of the star band: one square = one stitch. Grey square = knit with grey (MC), terracotta square = knit with terracotta (CC).
Read every row right to left, starting at the bottom row (round 1) and working up. In the round, you're always on the right side, so there's no back-and-forth — every round reads the same direction.
Each chart row is 18 stitches wide, and your hat has 108 stitches — so you repeat the row 6 times around, and 6 stars appear.
Tap a row number to mark the round you're on — this page remembers it between sittings.
Your PDF cites the star chart from Mucklestone's 150 Scandinavian Knitting Designs and says any 15-round, 18-stitch star may be substituted — this chart is drawn from the hat's own photos: the traditional eight-pointed star (bold diagonal cross, four arrowheads, diamond centre) with the little dots between stars. If you'd rather work from the book's chart, everything else on this page stays the same.
Float note: on chart rounds 4 and 12 the grey stretch between stars reaches 7 stitches. That's workable — just keep it relaxed — or, if you like, twist the two yarns once around each other at the halfway point of that stretch to catch the float.
5. The other moves, in plain words
Knit 2 together (k2tog): needle through the next two stitches at once, knit them as one. This hat's only decrease — the whole crown is built from it.
The stripe "jog" fix (body round 8): in circular knitting, a color change leaves a tiny stair-step where the round begins. The fix: on the round after the stripe, lift the right leg of the stitch below the first stitch up onto the left needle, and knit it together with the first stitch. The step smooths out. The pattern has you remove the BOR marker for this one stitch, then put it back.
Switching to DPNs (crown round 11): when the shrinking crown no longer reaches around the circular, knit the next round off onto three double-pointed needles (a third of the stitches on each) and knit with the fourth. Snug the first stitch on each needle to avoid ladders.
Cinching the top: cut the yarn leaving 25 cm, thread it on the tapestry needle, run it through the final 6 stitches as you slip them off, pull tight like a drawstring, then take the tail to the inside and secure.
Balloon blocking: soak the finished hat, roll it in a towel, then pull it over a balloon inflated to 18–19″ around, set in a bowl, and let it dry. The balloon gently rounds the crown and evens out the colorwork. (Don't stretch the ribbing over the balloon — let the brim hang relaxed.)
Part 1 — The Brim
Part 2 — The Body
First-ever colorwork round? Do a practice run on your swatch: knit a few rounds alternating K3 grey, K3 terracotta. You'll feel the float rhythm in ten minutes, and your swatch becomes your float-tension reference.