Sometimes it takes me a while to get a particular stitch pattern out of my system, and I’ll keep playing around with it even after a pattern is published. Last August I published the Beanstalk Shawl, which was an offshoot of my Ensata designs, and as it turns out I still wasn’t done with leafy lace and half-twisted ribbing! The Beanstalk Hat features the same lace pattern as the shawl, flowing out of the brim’s half-twisted ribbing and easing gracefully into the crown decreases.

You may be wondering why there are three versions of the hat pictured with varying levels of lace-coverage, and the honest answer is that there was a lot of trial and error involved in getting this design finalised, which resulted in three different versions of the hat. I love all three, and rather than publishing them separately, I thought you might enjoy a ‘pick a path’ pattern. The Beanstalk Hat pattern allows you to choose whether to knit a single panel of the lace pattern, all-over lace, or no lace at all. For ease of following your chosen path in the pattern, I’ve named the three versions Spring, Summer, and Winter according to the amount of lacy foliage.

‘Spring’ (single lace panel) in smaller size, ‘Summer’ (all-over lace) in larger size, and ‘Winter’ (plain half-twisted ribbing) in larger size.

For each of the three hats I used a fingering-weight yarn with wonderful stitch definition: Knitcraft & Knittery’s sustainable Australian merino 4ply in the colours Missy Z (muted pink), Sandilocks (rich gold), and Silver Fox (speckled greys). As I was knitting, I really enjoyed how satisfyingly soft the non-superwash-treated merino felt in my hands.

For the two lace versions of the hat I recommend choosing a solid or nearly-solid colour, as the lace pattern can easily get lost otherwise. We (me and a few of my test-knitters) confirmed this after giving more variegated yarns a try, and we all ended up frogging the lace. But because I loved how the speckled Silver Fox colourway looked in the ribbing, I decided to keep going and include a plain ribbed version of the hat as a bonus option.

Skills needed to knit this pattern include the Long Tail Cast On (optional), working lace stitches from charts or written instructions (both are included), working a small circumference in the round, and working twisted decreases in the crown of the hat - I have a tutorial on How to work twisted decreases if these are unfamiliar. Two sizes are included in the pattern, as well as suggestions for customising the length.

Beanstalk Hat features:

a beanie knit in the round from the bottom up, with optional leafy lace pattern
choose between a single lace panel, all-over lace, or plain twisted ribbing
requires 157 (248)yds/143.5 (227)m of fingering-weight yarn (shown in Knitcraft & Knittery Fingering Weight Merino)
the two lace versions look best in solid or near-solid colourways, while the plain version also suits variegated yarn
hat dimensions, unstretched: 14 (16)”/35.5 (41)cm brim circumference, and 8 (9)”/20.5 (23)cm length from cast-on to crown, to fit 18-20 (21–23)”/46-51 (53.5-58.5)cm head circumference
charts and written instructions are both provided in full.