Hat knitting season is definitely here! I can smell it in the crisp morning air, and my needles are already itching to cast on all the hats!

I'm a sucker for Woolly's hat designs. I have knitted many of them over the years, and they never disappoint, both in terms of fun knitting experience and fabulous finished projects. Woolly and I were chatting about yarns at Edinburgh back in March, and I pressed a ball of Schoppel Gradient on her. Gradient is a really under-appreciated yarn in my opinion. Martina used it for her Wood Warbler cowl, and I absolutely loved knitting with it. The yarn is lightly felted and feels very straight. It doesn't have a twist like most knitting yarns do, and the fabric it makes when knitted up is squishy and warm. And that's before we start to talk about the colours! Juxta is shown here in the Fankurve (or Fan Block) colourway, which combines greys, pinky-purple and a light tealy blue (shown in the large image below), but there are lots of other beautiful options available!

Each of those photos shows three balls of the same colourway, in an attempt to give you a clear view of the range of colours found within each! They do vary quite a bit, and the balls don't contain the entire colour repeat, so there is some variation. If you click on an image it will take you to the product page over in our shop, where Gradient costs £13.00 per 100g ball.

Juxta is the perfect hat project if you've been knitting along with A Year of Techniques, as it incorporates a provisional cast on, short row shaping and garter stitch grafting. We have video tutorials for all of those, as well as the photo tutorials in AYoT, and Woolly has included illustrated tutorials in the pdf download too.

One ball of Gradient is enough to knit any of the sizes of Woolly's Juxta hat, and you can get your hands on a copy of the hat by visiting her Ravelry store to purchase in US dollars : Juxta in dollars or heading over to her website to purchase in Euros: Juxta in Euros.

If you haven't already signed up to Woolly's Woolly Hat Society newsletter, then I highly recommend doing so.

I'm still trying to decide which shade to use for my Juxta, but I'm currently swithering between Parrot and Tea Ceremony. How about you?