I’m so excited to share my newest pattern, the Watering the Trees Beanie! This pattern was designed intentionally for gift and charity knitting and is my gift to you. You can snag your copy of the Watering the Trees Beanie Pattern here.

For the past couple of years, I have endeavored to knit hats for my growing number of nieces and nephews in lieu of toys. In 2024, I knit a dozen hats in December. Although I failed to capture a photo of all of them together, I did share a reel on Instagram. Not all of the designs that I used have been published yet, but I did manage to get one of them written up, tech edited, test knit, and finally published!

Pattern Inspiration

The Watering the Trees Beanie is the hat version of my Watering the Trees Socks pattern that I designed a couple of years ago. The idea came about after my then-six-year-old and two-year-old decided to “water” our backyard trees. The event mostly involved the two of them running around and spraying each other with the garden hose, but they had fun, and the two maple trees in our backyard did manage to get a bit of water. When the light caught the droplets of water just right, a little rainbow added joy to our backyard fun.

The design features two mirrored cables to represent our two maple trees, and the textured ribbing makes me think of the streams of water from the garden hose. The pattern features my signature use of increases and decreases to make the cables pop without bunching or gathering the fabric beyond the cables.

Sizing

The Watering the Trees Beanie pattern includes sizes for the whole family, including baby, toddler, child, adult s/m, adult l, and adult xl sizes. It is designed to fit head circumferences from 14″ (36 cm) to 26″ (66 cm) comfortably. I prefer a generous fit in my hats, so I size my patterns with a looser fit in mind; you can size down for a snugger fit.

I have a 23″ circumference head and prefer the adult l size. You can see it here in purple.

I suspect that the most commonly knit size will end up being the adult s/m size, which I am modeling here in green.

Matching Socks

Should you decide that you need some matching cozy socks, check out my Watering the Trees Socks pattern. These socks are cozy and cabled, and my use of increases and decreases for the cables makes choosing a sock size easy – just pick the cast on number closest to the one you use for your favorite vanilla socks. You’ll want to stick with a similar favorite yarn and needle size for socks.

Gift Knitting

This hat knits up rather quickly using DK weight yarn, and I love it for gifts for anyone. I hope you’ll join me in making a few of these hats for yourself, your friends and family, and for donations to individuals and organizations who may need some extra love in the coming seasons.

Do you have any preferred organizations that you knit for? Let me know here! I’m planning to send a few pieces up to Knit the Rainbow and already have a couple saved away for them.