Alexa: Gourmet Crafter

My charming little brother, Jordan, came to me the other day with a knitting request: he needed a new toque. Now, my brothers (and the men in my life in general) rarely come to me with crafting requests so I feel the need to oblige when they do. Mostly I just decide they need something and knit it for them, no muss, no fuss. So, my mission was set out before me in fairly simple terms, a toque, maybe with some earflaps.

I pondered my mission, what color? What fiber? How important is washability? How shall I design it? Should it roll, should I include the earflaps? Finally I settled on a beautiful variegated green in the Malabrigo Worsted. I set to designing and came up with a simple, yet effective toque with just enough style….or so I thought. A few weeks later (I am as surprised as you are that I managed to finish his toque so far in advance of his birthday) my brother rolled across a photograph of the toque I had made him. “I want something like that, but with bigger earflaps, and with different colors, maybe with a design on it” he says to me. I shot him the look of death.

I had two choices: I could give up on knitting him something and enjoy my new awesome green toque or I could accept his challenge and create his dream cap. I think you know which option I chose. I had 1 week to design and knit the Jordan’s perfect toque. I pumped him for some more details and once I felt I had a good idea of what he wanted I was off to the races. This is what I came up with. Some fairly neutral colors with a little punch of green in the snowflakes. Stockinette stitch with some big earflaps and a design on it, just what Jordan ordered. I crocheted around the edges to give it a more finished look and to add in a little more green. This cap took 4 skeins of Mirosol Sulka (a lovely combination of wool, alpaca, and silk).

To purchase my original toque pattern for the Earflap Cap, click here.

To purchase Jordan’s Toque pattern click here. Patterns are sent via email in a PDF format.