826 Modern Lumberjack Plaid Hat - Knitting Pattern for Men and Women in Valley Yarns Northampton

826 Modern Lumberjack Plaid Hat – Knitting Pattern by Julie Turjoman

The 826 Modern Lumberjack Plaid Hat is a cozy, colorful beanie knitting pattern designed by Julie Turjoman and published under the Valley Yarns brand. Worked in three bold, coordinating colors, this hat features a striking slip-stitch plaid border that evokes classic lumberjack flannel, making it a stylish and practical accessory for both men and women throughout the colder months. The pattern is available as a downloadable PDF and is rated intermediate in difficulty, making it an excellent next step for knitters who are comfortable with basic colorwork and working in the round.

What Is Being Made

This pattern produces a knitted beanie hat with a cheerful, plaid-inspired slip-stitch border and a slouchy crown. It is sized to fit a range of head circumferences, offered in three sizes:

• Small (S): 18–19 inches
• Medium (M): 20–21 inches
• Large (L): 22–23 inches

The sample shown in the pattern photography is knitted in size Medium. The finished hat is designed to sit comfortably on the head with a relaxed, slightly slouchy fit at the crown, giving it a modern, casual aesthetic that suits a wide range of personal styles.

Techniques Used

This pattern employs several knitting techniques that make it both engaging and educational for intermediate knitters:

• Bottom-up construction: The hat is begun at the brim and worked upward toward the crown, a straightforward and intuitive approach for hat knitting.
• Seamless, worked in the round: The entire hat is knitted in the round, eliminating the need for seaming and producing a smooth, continuous fabric.
• Cable Cast On method: The pattern specifies the Cable Cast On as the starting technique, which creates a firm, neat edge well-suited to a hat brim.
• Slip-stitch colorwork: The decorative plaid border is created using a slip-stitch pattern worked in three colors. Slip-stitch colorwork is a beginner-friendly approach to multi-color knitting because only one color is worked per row or round at a time, yet the resulting fabric has the visual complexity of traditional stranded colorwork.
• Stripes: Color changes are incorporated throughout the design, contributing to the plaid effect of the border section.
• Crown shaping: As with most beanies, the pattern includes decreases to shape the top of the hat into a neat, fitted crown.

Stitches Used

The pattern makes use of a small, well-defined set of stitches:

• Stockinette stitch (St st): Used for the main body of the hat above the decorative border, creating a smooth, classic knitted fabric.
• Slip-stitch pattern: The signature stitch of this design, used to create the colorful plaid border. Stitches are slipped purlwise without being worked, carrying colors across rows to build up the plaid motif.
• Knit and purl rounds: Simple knit and purl rounds are worked at the beginning of the hat, likely forming a subtle textural detail or transition at the brim edge.

The gauge for this pattern is 5 stitches and 7 rows to 1 inch in the Slip Stitch pattern, which is important to check before beginning, as the slip-stitch fabric can behave differently from plain stockinette.

Materials – Yarn, Needles, and Notions

This pattern is designed specifically for Valley Yarns Northampton, a 100% wool worsted weight yarn that comes in 100g skeins with approximately 247 yards each. The pattern calls for one skein each of three colors:

• Color A: Valley Yarns Northampton in 07 Black
• Color B: Valley Yarns Northampton in 50 Med Gray