Spread the Love Hat – Valentine’s Day Inspired Knit Hat with Fair Isle Hearts

Hey guys,

Today I’m sharing a pattern I designed in early February for a special Valentine’s Day pattern bundle I released for V-day! This hat is called the Spread the Love Beanie, and you can go straight to the pattern here, or shop the pattern bundle here, or continue reading for more info + a pattern coupon code!

About

Every since I learned how to knit, I wanted to have some themed patterns! I knew Valentine’s Day was coming up, and didn’t want to miss yet another holiday to have some fun designing around!

I played around with some graph paper to figure out a pattern for fair isle hearts that go all the way around the hat, and I came up with the pattern for Spread the Love 🙂

Construction

This pattern is written for an adult woman (21-23″ circumference according to the CYC sizing standards) in US knitting terms. This hat is knit in one piece, bottom-up on circular needles. The ribbed brim is knit first, and then the contrasting colour is added in to begin the heart motif. The rest of the hat is knit using just the knit stitch until the crown, where simple decreases are made. Easy peasy!

If you have trouble matching tension between knit and purl, size down 1 needle size for the brim and back to the normal size for the rest of the hat. Sometimes knit stitches are knit a bit looser when in combination with purl stitches on ribbing!

I’ve included a chart for the heart motif in addition to written instruction to help you knit the pattern with more confidence.

The hearts are created by knitting them with a contrasting colour. This is called stranded knitting, or fair-isle knitting. If you were to look at the inside of this hat, there will be long strands of white and pink along the heart section – these are called “floats” because the yarn essentially floats in the back of your work until you need to pick up that colour again.

Tip: Make sure to leave your floats loose enough to account for the horizontal stretching that happens when you put a hat on your head! Otherwise the tightest part will be the hearts, rather than the ribbed brim.

This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own. Any purchases made will help support Knits ‘N Knots blog content.

Yarn:

I used Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice for this project, one of my fave acrylic yarns. I chose the colour “pink” because.. you know.. Valentine’s Day! You can click here to check out all the colour options for this yarn (there are a lot!). You’ll only need 1 skein of a colour of your choice, and only a few yards of the contrasting colour.

The rest of my heart-inspired patterns have used very neutral colours, so I thought I would play up the whole “day of love” thing on this one since the hearts on this hat are a little more bold and a little less subtle than in the other patterns! I was looking for a bit of a cuteness-overload situation. I think I nailed it.

I love to use this yarn while I experiment with new patterns. It’s inexpensive and a good quality for the price you pay. The colour options are so pretty and it’s such a widely-available yarn that it’s so easily accessible and I never have trouble finding it. Sometimes, living in Canada, I have trouble finding the “recommended yarns” listed in knit or crochet patterns because Canada only gets certain brands and certain yarns within those brands. I have to do a lot of online ordering or find appropriate substitutions.

With Vanna’s Choice, I especially love that most of the colour options align with the Wool-Ease Thick and Quick which is another one of my go-to yarns (like the Oatmeal WET+Q and Oatmeal Vanna’s Choice, or the Grey Marble that matches as well). It’s nice to have the exact same colour in both a worsted and a super bulky! It makes for easier matching situations. I love making hats in super bulky, and matching scarves in worsted (or vice versa)!

Find the pattern in these places:

On my website here.

On Etsy here.

On Ravelry here.

(Use the code “PATTERN10” for 10% off all patterns)

I can’t wait to see your WIPs! Make sure to tag me @knitsnknotswpg and use the pattern hashtag #SpreadTheLoveBeanie so that everyone can see your projects!

Happy knitting,

Janine xo