Vincent Van Slouch

Finally, 6 months after it was knit, I am ready to publish the hat pattern I developed for my dad's Christmas gift (that's him modeling it on the track near my home-home). I got all sidetracked with a bunch of other projects, actually sitting and writing a pattern just never seemed to happen. That pesky day job didn't really help with that either. Right now we are immersed in a highly stylized, period, fairy tale movie. We don't do a lot of movies, we mostly stick to Broadway shows, tours, cruises and a few ice skaters but every so often a movie will need some period costumes that can't be found in stores and can't be rented. Normally I stay above the fray since I mostly manage and deal with paperwork. I tend not to do the hand work because sometimes doing what you love as your job turns it into something you don't love so much anymore. Anyway, this project was all hands on deck so I have been staying late and working weekends stitching fancy trim to fancy fabrics and trashing my poor fingers in the process. It has been fun to see this crazy-ness all come together and the costumes look pretty darn incredible. When advertising starts I will post links to what movie it is, and I can guarantee you won't want to miss it because the spectacle alone will be worth the price of the ticket.

Back to the knitting stuff, the whole point of this post, here is the Vincent Van Slouch hat. Last Christmas my dad asked for a slouchy hat. His request specifically, was for a deep blue hat with flashes of color like Van Gogh's Starry Night. My first thought was, geez dad you couldn't have chosen something a little less intimidating as inspiration? Finally I embraced the challenge and after some fun with graph paper I came up with this swirly pattern. The short color stretches are indicative of impressionist brush strokes. The different colored swirls nestle into each other, but each row is only ever worked with two colors, making the pattern look more complicated than it really is.

This hat is solidly unisex. The look can change dramatically depending on the colors are yarn used. The swirl colors use little yarn and are a good way to use up smaller leftover balls of yarn.

The pattern includes instructions for fingering and sport weight versions of the hat. The chart repeats are quite narrow so the pattern can be easily altered to fit smaller or larger heads or heavier weight yarns.