A soft cotton and cashmere blend makes a clever cabled chemo cap. This post covers finding the right needle size and trying a textured dress scarf and an openwork lace panel. It also covers knitting a soft cap with a cable trick that skips row-counting entirely.
Meet the yarn
This yarn blends cotton and cashmere in equal parts. It’s spun so that every ply carries a mix of shades from the same heathery color family. Cotton brings a cool, breathable hand, while cashmere adds warmth and remarkable softness. Neither fiber has much natural stretch. Ribbing or another textured stitch pattern helps give cuffs, hems, and fitted pieces some structure instead. That same softness makes this yarn especially nice for anything worn close to the skin. It suits caps for anyone who has lost their hair particularly well.
I’ve turned the balls of Truva around so you can see their full, heathery splendor! From left to right, Medallion, Aegean, Sandstone, Chambray, Harbor, and Mandarin. The only two colors not in this photo are Crocus and Stormcloud!
Find the right needle size
The label lists a fairly standard tension for its weight category, but a needle gauge told a different story. Loop a strand of yarn through several holes on a gauge tool, from largest to smallest. This reveals a Goldilocks zone where the loop sits neither too loose nor too tight. That test pointed toward a smaller needle than expected. A plain stockinette swatch with ribbed edges confirmed it, landing at 23 stitches to 4″ [10cm]. A smaller needle suits a structured sweater. A larger one adds drape for a shawl or tunic instead.
Swatch a textured dress scarf
A textured dress scarf pairs a double seed stitch border with a boxy checked panel. The panel works up in blocks of knit and purl stitches. The seed stitch border wraps around all four sides, framing the checked center. This helps the piece lie flat rather than curl. Repeat the pattern to the desired length, then close with a matching border. A couple of balls of yarn turn into a cozy, textured scarf this way.
Try an openwork lace panel
An openwork lace panel showcases the yarn’s drape once blocked. Rather than ribbing, a seed stitch border works better here. Lace has a tendency to curl, and seed stitch helps it lie flat instead. After a good soak and pinning, the lace panel opened up beautifully. The gauge relaxed into a true, classic worsted-weight tension. A repeating column of small leaf-like eyelets runs the length of the panel. It’s an effect pretty enough to imagine worked into the front panels of a cardigan.
I blocked this sample by pinning it to a wool pressing pad and then wetting it with a damp cloth. Truva blocked nicely!
Knit a no-count cable cap
A cap worked top-down and in the round makes the perfect final project. It uses a cable pattern designed to skip the usual row counting. Starting from a tiny circle of stitches, quick increases build the crown up to full size. From there, four-stitch cables repeat every so many stitches and rounds. Each one shifts one position over from the last. That steady shift becomes a built-in guide. Feeling where the most recent cable crossed tells a knitter exactly when the next one falls due. No row counter required.
Changing needle sizes gives the brim of the hat a soft, bucket-style flare that flatters many face shapes.
Two brim options finish the cap differently. A simple ribbed brim keeps things classic and snug. For a softer, flared shape instead, switch to progressively larger needles for the last few rounds. This lets the brim relax outward before binding off. A doubled strand of yarn at the cast off edge adds a bit of extra structure. One ball of this soft yarn makes a single cap with room to spare. About three balls stretch comfortably across two finished caps.
L-R: Squared Check pattern in Crocus (Post 3); ‘vanilla’ stockinette sample with ribbed borders in Sandcastle (Post 2); Cable Chemo Cap in Mandarin (Post 5); Little Leaf Lace (Post 4); Cable Chemo Cap in Sandcastle and no-count cables swatch in Medallion (Post 5).