Now available on both Ravelry and Loveknitting: the Truro Hat pattern! Like the Wellfleet Hat, it uses an innovative new cable from Norah Gaughan's Knitted Cable Sourcebook, AND it looks great from the "wrong" side (see the 3rd and 4th photos), making it effectively reversible. Instead of a pompom, I decided to add a fun tassel to the crown of this hat.
The yarn I used, Cascade Yarns Boliviana Bulky, is a Super Bulky weight yarn, with label gauge of 2 to 2 1/2 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch, and recommended needle sizes are US 13 (9 mm) to US 17 (12 mm)! So if you are looking for something you can work up in an evening or two, the Truro Hat would be a great choice. You cast on only 68 stitches for the adult size, so I had to find a relatively small cable stitch pattern. Even though it's a smaller repeat than the cable I used in the Wellfleet Hat, it's a bit tricker to work, because you have to move the cable needle from front to back (or vice versa) in the middle of working the cable cross.
The circular needle length I recommend for hats is 20 inches (50 cm), which I've recently realized is quite hard to find (thank you Paradise Fibers for carrying them!). Most knitting stores jump from 16-inch to 24-inch-long needles, but 24 inches is really too long to do most hats, and I find the needles on the 16-inch-long ones awkward to use because they're so short.
As a bonus I've included detailed instructions on how to do a felted join (otherwise known as "spit-splicing"). If you are using a non-superwash wool or other animal-origin yarn, this is a great way to invisibly join new balls of yarn, and decrease the number of ends you have to weave in when you're done.
I really love the way the three-dimensionality of a simple cable is enhanced in such a thick yarn. The "right" side of the fabric reminds me of snow-covered tree branches.
The towns of Truro* and North Truro are right next to Wellfleet, on Cape Cod; if you visit, be sure to see the Highland Light. It's the oldest lighthouse on Cape Cod, is still in active use, and was moved 450 feet west in 1996 to keep it beach erosion from causing it to fall into the ocean! (Photo below: John Burk)
*I was informed by a knitter who saw this pattern on Ravelry that there is also a Truro in Nova Scotia (and she lives there).