New pattern day! Heartpops is a cute textured tam or beret, with embossed hearts popping out from a lattice of cables.

I took advantage of the Valentine's Day display at the lolly shop for my photo props. ;) My sweet tooth is pretty much non-existent, so my flatmates will have to take on the task of eating the lollies now I'm done photographing them... I'm sure they won't complain too much!

This is what the bright blue yarn from my Wellington trip became - it's Madelinetosh Tosh DK in 'Button Jar Blue'. Tosh DK has great stitch definition and, best of all for someone who tends to do a lot of un-knitting in order to get a project just so, it's tough enough to stand up several rounds of frogging without getting damaged. And the colour is just unreal...

Features:

textured pattern with embossed hearts and cable lattice
1/1 cables that can be knit without a cable needle
the lattice flows out of the ribbing and into a star-shaped crown
can be blocked into a tam/beret shape or a beanie shape
a one-skein project for 100g of DK-weight yarn
suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways
four sizes (Child Small to Adult Large)
both charted and written instructions.

Here's a link to my favourite tutorial on knitting small cables without a cable needle: Twisted Stitches.

There are a couple of special increases and decreases in this pattern, which are explained in the stitch glossary. They only occur a few times - mostly you'll be working plain old m1, k2tog, and ssk. This pattern would be suitable for an intermediate or advanced level knitter.