The Raxtur Hat – my take on Stephen West’s quirky creation

This week’s blog post is all about my wishes for the new year, and reflections while knitting the Raxtur Hat.

Happy New Year from This Knitting Bee! May 2024 bring us all empathy, freedom, stability, and an abundance of good things. Witnessing the intolerance and disasters gripping parts of the world, including my own country, makes me wish for a collective pause, reflection and making amends this year.

But let’s also celebrate the beauty that still shines through! Just like the beauty in people’s kind hearts, I find beauty in their creative minds, actions, and designs. Take Stephen West, for example. He is an internationally acclaimed knitwear designer, and is known for his shawl designs and innovative use of colours. On his birthday last year, this generous designer slashed his pattern prices by a good margin. For a small business like mine, expensive patterns used maybe only once can be a stretch. His act of sharing his talent and designs was truly a beautiful gift.

Stephen West, and what I love about his designs

Now, West is known for his quirky, colourful explosions. Some find it too much, while others love the sassy vibe. Personally, being surrounded by India’s vibrant palette all day, sometimes his colour choices overwhelm me! Even the humblest bucket here is a riot of colours, haha!

But what I love are the techniques he weaves into each design. These are just my observations, ymmv:

• He explores every stitch in the knitting universe, showcasing as many as relevant in each project. Talk about variety!

• And if he is not playing around with stitches, he is fiddling with positioning and orientation of the project.

• And even in the simplest design, he’ll throw in some unexpected twist – a signature “Stephen West touch” that any knitter would recognize instantly.

I really admire his work, and wanted a chance to try out some of his works. I find great joy in learning new techniques, and West’s patterns push me to think out of the box. So, with last year’s mini-profit, I splurged and bought some of his hat patterns. The Raxtur hat is one of them, and you can buy the pattern from here – https://www.westknits.com/collections/hats/products/raxtur.

Understanding the Raxtur Hat

The Raxtur Hat isn’t just any winter hat with earflaps. It definitely has a bit of the Norse vibe going for it, while my kids think of the flaps as a fox’s ears. The hat’s body uses slipped stitches and stripes to make it look different, while the earflaps have an intricate honeycomb cable stitch that extends up to the brim. The earflaps are not only for show- they can be worn down to do its basic job of keeping the cold away, or flipped up to present a perky look. Some important features and requirements are as follows:

• Dimensions – Circumference: 53cm, Height (from bottom of brim to top of crown): 30cm
• Recommended yarn – Worsted weight yarn, in two colours. West used Schoppel Wolle Baby Alpaka Naturbelassen (50% Wool, 50% Alpaca; 200m per 100g skein).
• Recommended needles – The flaps and the brim are cable knit with 4mm needles, while the body is knit with 4.5mm needles.
• Gauge to be achieved – 26 sts and 36 rds in a 10 x 10 cm square, using the smaller needles.

What I used to knit the Raxtur Hat

To best suit this hat’s requirements, I chose Heartbeat’s Oekotex Class I certified ‘Merino Cotton’ (https://www.heartbeatsyarns.com/product/merino-cotton). This is a medium worsted yarn, with a blend of 70% Cotton, 21% Merino Wool and 9% Alpaca. The meterage is about 100mtr per 50gm ball, which is just about the same as what West’s yarn has. There are about 14 colours available, of which I used two colours – white (MCT09) and grey (MCT05).

This yarn is not your regular plied yarn; it actually is a Chainette yarn. The very fine merino, cotton and alpaca yarns are machine-knitted together into a hollow tube, almost like how an i-cord is knitted. The tube can then be used in any fiber craft that requires yarns. This provides for some solid advantages:

• The hollow core makes the yarn super light, even though it belongs to a worsted weight category,
• The yarn is fairly elastic and smooth, not easily achievable with yarns that have cotton and alpaca,
• Because of the hollow core, air gets trapped inside, allowing for some very warm garments,
• Plant fibers that are rigid as well as animal fibers that are quite short can be combined to yield a more pliable yarn, and
• Because it uses very less fibre, the yarn does not cost much. As of the day this blog post was published, it was priced at 155 INR per ball.

With the recommended 5.5mm needles, a gauge of 19sts and 28 rows can be achieved. However, since I was using smaller needles throughout, my gauge was similar to what West recommended – 26sts and 36 rows in a 10 x 10cm square.

I was also able to knit to the correct dimensions of the hat – Circumference: 53cm, Height (from bottom of brim to top of crown): 30cm.

Interesting Stitch Plays

1. The hat’s body mostly is worked in purl stitches, if worked on the right side. Which can get quite cumbersome, as I am not too fond of purling. So, the first technique suggested (which I found clever) is to turn the hat inside out, and knit the purl stitches, while purling the knit stitches. Since this is a project worked in the round, after slipping the markers as recommended, turning the hat helps tremendously. Knitting four stitches every time just feels so much smoother than purling the same stretch.

2. The second one is to slip 2 stitches to make the vertical lines of the hat’s body stand out. If it was only purled as usual, the body would look as if it had a 4×2 rib. But slipping them in one round, and purling them in the next one makes them to elongate and look more pronounced. Not only did this add texture, but it also played with the colours in a whole new way.

3. As recommended, I used the magic loop method to knit in the round. Between this technique and using double-pointed needles, I struggle with laddering sometimes. The one way West circumvents that is to use the magic loop, and pull the cord through different stitches each time. This way, there is no gap between stitches, and hence no laddering.

Finishing Steps

Firstly, like in the Purl Soho’s classic cuffed hat that I knit, I will most definitely be adding a lining to the hat. As a curly girl, I have learned the hard way to protect my hair from anything that can cause breakage and/or damage. So, I paid a visit to my favourite fabric centre and bought Japanese Habotai silk for this purpose. It is lightweight, smooth and rather soft. I was told it is a breathable fabric, can wick moisture and is hypoallergenic.

Secondly, as suggested by West, I will be adding a medium sized pompom to the hat. Though I don’t have much clarity on the colour (I am leaning towards black), this decision should be taken soon enough. A logo and a wash, and then this hat is good to be sold.

Also, if I ever knit the Raxtur hat again, I would go for a more contrasting colour option. A subtle palette works great while layering clothes, which is where the current hat would be perfect. But for the hat to be the defining feature of the entire look, it will require some bold colours.

My observations about Heartbeat’s Merino Cotton

1. Merino Cotton knitted up really well, I didn’t observe any yarn splitting as such while working with basic metal needles.
2. Though the brand suggests using a needle size of 5.5mm, it works up perfectly with any other sized needles. I was able to achieve the gauge required without increasing or decreasing tension. However, the fabric looks tight and so I would like to knit this yarn with 5.5mm needles to see how they really fare.
3. Working with this yarn in November was rather nice, it felt warm while Pune was going cooler.
4. As it is a Chainette yarn, It is fluffy and lightweight at the same time! It is also machine washable and dries quickly. All plusses, in my opinion.

I love the way this hat turned out! It is very warm, feels soft and light, and is a unique winter hat that would be great to wear or gift. I have to say that this blog post only shows snippets of what I made, so that I can maintain some level of suspense for this year’s drop. If you’re a knitter, and are looking for a reasonably easy hat to make, certainly this one is the way to go. And as always, it goes without saying, if you aren’t a knitter and want a hat like this, you know which bee to contact haha.

Have you ever tried working with a Stephen West pattern? What are your thoughts about his work? Let’s talk in the comments!