Sandy Shores

I love it that we have a proper winter here in Finland. And what would be more appropriate for that a warm and cosy beanie?

What: Sandy Shores / Own pattern

How: Circular needles 3.75 mm and 4.0 mm
From: Nature's Luxury Town & Country Cashmere, 75 g

I haven't designed a hat for a while but when I fell in love with these gorgeous Nature's Luxury cashmere fade kits I knew right away that I wanted to make a new beanie. I used the Sandy fade kit for my sample - hence the name for the hat.

Sandy Shores is a sweet hat that starts off with a neat tubular cast-on. It takes a couple setup rows but gives the neatest, round cast-on edge. The pattern comes with a photo tutorial for tubular cast-on so fear not.

The hat is adorned with intricate cables and fun bobbles. And of course, a pompom! My favorite thing is that the pompom is attached with a button so you can easily remove it if you need to wash the hat or aren't feeling pompom-y some day.

In my weekly Tea Time over on Instagram, there have been lots of questions on how to make such a perfect looking pompom. There's a simple trick for that. First, I use a pompom maker. It's easier to get a full pompom with that than using a cardboard cutout. But the perfect fluffiness is achieved with a cool trick: once the pompom is finished, hold it over a tea kettle because the hot steam will make the plies of the yarn open up, giving it the perfect fluff. 

I designed the beanie in collaboration for Nature's Luxury's stunning cashmere yarn and you can find kits over on their web shop. They're offering the pattern with the kit. You can also get Sandy Shores as an individual download on Ravelry, LoveCrafts and PayHip. Use the code SANDY to get 15% discount until the end of this week.