Some years ago, friends from the US were spending Christmas with us and I wanted to equip them with warm hats for all their sightseeing adventures. I was looking for something that had a flavor of Scotland without screaming “Tourist!!!” and which also had a small difference between hats so they could easily tell them apart. I decided to try my hand at designing for the first time and the Colors of Scotland hat was born. Fast forward five years and I still hadn’t gotten round to writing the pattern up… so this December I decided to remedy that, and this updated version is the result!

Method: This hat is knit in the round from the brim up. Featuring a small stranded colorwork chart for the Saltire (Scotland’s national flag), and stripes in four traditional Scottish colors, it can be topped off with a fluffy pompom.

The pattern contains a tutorial for achieving jogless stripes and, if you prefer working from written instructions rather than a chart, the Line-by-Line Chart Equivalent instructions are also included for the stranded colorwork motif.

Size: This pattern is written in 4 sizes. All instructions that differ depending on the size you are knitting are color coded and indicated with parentheses like this: XS (S, M, L).
Sizing has 1.5” – 2.5” (3.75 - 6 cm) of negative ease built in, so choose a size 1.5” – 2.5” (3.75 - 6 cm) smaller than the head circumference of the intended wearer.

Size - Finished Hat Circumference - Suggested Age
XS - 16” (41 cm) - Child
S - 18” (46 cm) - Teen/ Women’s S
M - 20” (51 cm) - Women’s M- L/ Men’s S
L - 22” (56 cm) - Men’s M - L

Yarn: This pattern works well with four solid colors of DK yarn. You can use any DK yarn that you like and with which you can get tension/ gauge.
Please note I do not recommend using yarns with a high cotton content as cotton doesn’t stretch as much as other fibers and this will affect the fit of your hat.

Usually, I encourage choosing your own colors to knit my designs, but to retain the Scottish nature of this hat MC should always be blue and CC1 should always be white. There is more freedom with CC2 and CC3; for CC2 I chose green to represent the countryside, it’s also a popular color in tartans. For CC3 I chose purple to represent the Scottish thistle (the Flower of Scotland). You could also use red or yellow for CC2 or CC3, as they are other colors often seen in tartans.
To make fraternal rather than matching hats choose different colors for CC2 and/or CC3. For example, for my second hat I used red for CC3 instead of purple.

The amounts of each color required will depend on which size you knit. As a guide for size L (hat pictured) I used the following:
MC – Drops Karisma 37 Dark Grey Blue approx. 85 metres (93 yards)
CC1 – Drops Karisma 19 White approx. 45 metres (49 yards)
CC2 – Drops Karisma 47 Forest Green approx. 40 metres (44 yards)
CC3 – Drops Karisma 74 Lavender approx. 20 metres (22 yards)