Person wearing a hand knit cabled beanie with colorful specks, holding their hair with both hands, outdoors with cloudy sky and greenery.
A woman with long hair, wearing a hand knit cabled beanie, black long-sleeve shirt, ripped black jeans, and beige boots, standing outdoors amidst green shrubs and trees with a cloudy sky in the background.
Person with long curly hair wearing a cream hand knit cabled hat and black shirt looking at a natural landscape with trees and a cloudy sky.
A woman in a black puffy jacket and hand knit cabled beanie standing outdoors among trees, looking to the side with a contemplative expression.
A hand knitted cabled beanie hat with multicolored specks rests on a textured, lichen-covered stone surface outdoors.

Winter Sage Hat

THIS HAT WAS BORN from a simple desire: to play with the gorgeous texture and color of La Bien Aimée’s Confetti yarn. I swatched several stitch patterns, trying to find just the right match—something that would complement the yarn’s bouncy 3-ply construction and playful tweedy speckles.

In the end, I came back to an old favorite: plump, sculptural cables, originally featured in one of my earliest published designs, the Winter Sage Sweater. Reimagined here in hat form and worked top-down, this design allows you to customize the fit as you go—making it as satisfying and fun to knit as the Confetti yarn itself.

  • Design & Construction: The Winter Sage Hat is a classic beanie-style design, featuring a cabled stitch pattern and a single-fold folded brim. The hat is knit from the top down, allowing for easy adjustments to length and fit.

    Fit: This hat is designed to be worn with 10 to 15% negative ease. To pick the best size for you, measure your head circumference at the fullest point. Multiply this number by your preferred ease and then subtract the result from your head circumference. Make the size with a finished circumference closest to that number.

    For instance, to make a hat to fit a 22-in. (56-cm) head with 15% negative ease, multiply 22 in. (56 cm) by 0.15 to get 3.3 in (8.4 cm). This is your negative ease measurement. Subtract this number from 22 in. (56 cm) to get 18.7 in. (47.6 cm). This is your ideal hat circumference. Size 3 has the closest finished circumference to this number, so you would make this size.

    Yarn: The yarn estimates provided in this pattern are approximations, calculated to allow for both a sizable swatch and the sweater, with a small margin of error. Your actual yarn usage may vary based on factors such as your personal gauge, the yarn’s character-istics (e.g., fiber content, ply, thickness), and any modifications you make to the pattern.

    Stitch Patterns: Written and charted instructions are included for the cabled stitch pattern so you can choose your preferred method of instructions for knitting these sections!

  • SIZES
    (1, 2)(3, 4, 5) sized to fit (12 Months, Youth/Adult Small)(Adult Medium, Adult Large, Adult X-Large)

    FINISHED CIRCUMFERENCE
    The circumference as measured at the widest point of the crown is as follows.
    (16, 17.25)(18.75, 21.25, 22.75) in.
    (40, 43)(47, 53, 57) cm

    This hat is designed to be worn with 10 to 15% negative ease. The sample is shown in Size 3 with 15% negative ease.

  • YARN
    DK weight
    (55, 65)(80, 100, 110) g/(140, 165)(200, 250, 275) yds or (130, 150)(185, 230, 250) m

    SUGGESTED YARN
    La Bien Aimée Confetti (100 g/250 yds (230 m)) – 50% fine Merino, 30% Shetland, 20% La Bien Aimée (LBA) thread

    (1, 1)(1, 1, 2) skeins

    The sample hat is knit in the colorway Gris Ephémère.

  • Needle A (body): US 6 (4 mm)
    Needle B (ribbing): US 5 (3.75 mm)

    You will need 32 in. (80 cm) circular needles to work in the round using the magic loop method, or your preferred needles for smaller circumference knitting, such as short circular or double-pointed needles.

  • Measure gauge knit in the round, after blocking.

    26 sts and 32 rows = 4 in. (10 cm) in cable stitch pattern

  • Knitting

    Purling

    Increasing

    Center cast-on of choice (i.e., disappearing loop, i-cord belly button, or Emily Ocker’s cast-on)

    Top-down hat construction

    Knitting in the round

    Cable knitting

    Chart reading

    1x1 ribbing

    Jeny's bind-off (modified)

Purchase the Winter Sage Hat pattern on Ravelry