Originally released as part of the Colourwork Club Ruthven in now available individually. Ruthven is a bottom up hat pattern, designed by Weichien — The Petite Knitter, perfect for anyone looking to satisfy their yearning for further stranded colourwork practice! Work in two or three (or four!) colours to experiment with your own design.

Colourwork Club Explore your creativity, improve your skills, and knit together in a supportive community. Join us here.

The Colourwork Club includes three beautiful accessory patterns, designed to slowly grow your colourwork skills. Also included in the club purchase is access to the club group on the Ysolda Knitwork, our online community and learning platform.

In Your Inbox:

• 3 patterns, which can be downloaded directly or added to your Ravelry library
• Supportive community full of inspiration and helpful discussion
• Resources to walk you through picking up stranded colourwork for the first time
• Tutorials and tips for each pattern

Ruthven
The Ruthven hat makes a great second project to gently stretch your stranded colourwork skills. It’s worked bottom-up with enough slouchy length to pull down over your ears. The corrugated ribbing brim introduces a fun new skill: you’ll work the knit stitches of the rib in one colour, and the purl stitches in another. The double layer created by the stranding adds extra warmth, and corrugated rib has crisp vertical lines without as much stretch as regular ribbing. You might find the purl stitches tricky: even for experienced knitters, corrugated ribbing can feel quite slow, so don’t be surprised if it takes longer than you expect. The results are well worth the effort, and once you’ve completed the band the rest of the colourwork will be much more familiar.

The effective colourwork pattern features a small repeat, similar to the motifs used in Mulben, and the bands of pattern offer the perfect canvas for playing with colour. Choose a simple two colour option; try out a gradient, fading towards the top; work each band in a different colour; or use multiple colours per band to highlight the tips or centre rows of the motifs; the possibilities are truly endless.

The slouchy crown, perfectly gathered to top with a pom-pom, is worked in a solid colour. If you’re new to switching to dpns, or magic loop, you’ll be able to focus on that without attempting stranded colourwork simultaneously. The pattern includes three sizes and, with so many creative possibilities for colour play, you might struggle to stop at one!

Yarn
Heavy fingering / sport weight wool yarn. Shown in Rauma Finull PT2 (100% Norwegian wool, 191 yds / 175m, 1.76oz / 50g).

Main colour for each palette
Natural Winter: 401
Cozy Room: 4025
Watercolour: 4078

Contrast Colours used for each of the Colourwork Club palettes are indicated on the corresponding charts.

Total yarn: 195[225, 250] yds / 180[205, 230]m.
Main colour approx: 120[130, 140] yds / 110[120, 130]m.

Contrast colours: the yarn amounts needed will vary depending on how many contrast colours you use and how you decide to arrange the colours.

Gauge
24 sts and 26 rnds = 4” / 10cm in stranded colourwork pattern

Needles
Size 6 US / 4mm 16” / 40 cm circular needle and preferred needles for working small circumferences in the rnd.
The Petite Knitter used a Size 3 US / 3.25mm needle.

Notions
Stitch marker

Sizes
small[medium, large]
Finished circumference: 21 1/4[22 3/4, 24]” / 53[57, 60]cm.
Finished length: 9½” / 24cm