DIY: Knit Tralee Hat by Kiku Corner

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Meet our newest knit design: the Tralee Hat!

The Tralee Hat uses twisted stitches to showcase Norwood by Sweet Paprika Designs. The hat uses a hand-dyed yarn and depicts a stylized rose motif. We named the hat after Tralee, a village in Ireland which is well-known for its international rose festival. Twisted stitches are essentially 2-stitch cables, but knit without a cable needle. I’ve used twistes stitches before, when making the Sidewinder Beanie by Aspen Leaf Knits. Whereas the Sidewinder Beanie just uses Right Twists, the Tralee Hat uses both Left and Right Twists.

The Tralee Hat is a collaboration with Sweet Paprika Designs, a Canadian indie dyer sister duo. Norwood is their line of yarn that is completely Canadian. The Norbouillet (Rambouillet-cross) fleeces are purchased from Pine Hollow Farm in Ontario, sent to Wellington Fibres (a small mill) for spinning, before being dyed by Sweet Paprika Designs in their Montreal studio.

This hat is knit in the round from the bottom up. We’ve included both written instructions as well as charts. I like to follow charts but everyone has their own preferences, so this way you can knit this hat no matter what you prefer!

The hat looks best using tonal or solid-dyed yarns. It’s a great project to use up a special skein of DK-weight, hand-dyed yarn. Although this pattern calls for Sweet Paprika Designs Norwood, you could also use DROPS Karisma, Malabrigo Arroyo, or Madeline Tosh DK.

Sweet Paprika Design’s Norwood yarn is quite special. Not only is it grown, milled, and dyed in Canada, it also knits up beautifully. Once worked up in the hat pattern, the yarn almost glows. The fibre has a slight sheen to it, which I think is from the Romney sheep.

The Norbouillet wool is from Pine Hollow Farm near Norwood, Ontario. The flock started in 1988 with purebred Rambouillet sheep. The farm then added Romney and one other purebred, never disclosed, to contribute specific traits and produce a fleece that Ontario mills could process. The resulting wool is soft, slightly lustrous, with a gentle drape. I have a sweater quantity of Norwood that I eventually want to knit into a cardigan for myself.