June 2026 - Charlotte Stone
June’s Beanie Brigade bursts into bloom with the joyful, retro magic of the Sunflower Power Hat Pattern by Charlotte Stone. This month’s featured yarn pairing combines one full skein of a Merino Sport with a coordinating mini, creating the perfect palette for playful color-work and bold personality. Super soft, springy, and beautifully balanced, this 100% Merino Sport weight yarn brings crisp stitch definition while still feeling lightweight enough for year round wear. The fabric blooms gently after blocking, creating a hat that feels both polished and cozy with every stitch.
The featured color-way, Whole Lotta Love, is pure sunshine and rock-and-roll energy. Saturated pinks and juicy berry tones swirl through the main skein, while the golden contrast minis bring a bold sunflower glow that practically radiates warmth. Together, the colors feel vibrant, nostalgic, and unapologetically happy, like vintage concert posters, wildflower fields, and long summer evenings all wrapped into one playful project. It’s the kind of knit that instantly brightens a grey day and makes a statement the moment you pull it on.
June 2026 Designer: Charlotte Stone
🌻 This month we are also thrilled to feature designer Charlotte Stone. Known for her bold use of color, playful patterns, and joy filled knitwear design, Charlotte creates pieces that feel both nostalgic and completely fresh. Her Sunflower Power hat pattern is the perfect match for Whole Lotta Love, with its graphic floral motifs allowing the vibrant pinks and golden yellows to truly shine. It’s the kind of project that keeps you excited for “just one more round,” balancing simple color-work with a finished piece that feels bright, expressive, and full of personality. We asked Charlotte some questions for her feature and we hope her answers inspire you in some way:
Q1. Your designs are instantly recognizable and so full of personality. How did you first find your voice as a color-work designer?
A1. I have always loved drawing cartoons and illustrations since I was a child. Color-work knitting seemed to mesh my love of drawing and knitting together perfectly.
Q2. The Sunflower Power Beanie feels both bold and joyful. What was the spark behind this design?
A2. It started off as a motif for a color-work sock design, but I felt it was a shame to have these bold, easy to knit and fun flower motifs hidden on our feet and really wanted to have a vibrant beanie hat to show them off with. I love that knitters can knit the beanie in many different color combinations, it is simple to knit and it is going to help brighten up cold and grey wintery days.
Q3. Your work often plays with strong, graphic motifs. What draws you to that style over more traditional color-work?
A3. I really like to try and evoke a feeling of joy and whimsy in my work and I felt I can do this with graphic motifs that are often a surprise or a unique subject to be seen on knitwear. I do love traditional color-work too, but I really enjoy and strive to create something totally new that hasn´t been seen before with my designs.
Q4. When you are designing, do you start with color, motif, or structure first?
A4. It is normally the motif / subject of the motif that starts the design ideas for me. Though sometimes it is the color of the yarn too.
Q5. This hat uses stranded color-work in a really approachable way. What advice would you give knitters who are just stepping into color-work for the first time?
A5. I would say it is really not as difficult as you might think. But be warned, once you start you are not going to want to stop! There are also many different ways for holding the yarns, you don´t necessarily need to hold a strand of yarn in each hand. You can simply pick the yarn and put it down as you need it. No one is going to ever know exactly how you knit and held your yarn when they are admiring your finished beanie!! Also, color-work gets better with practice. And don´t underestimate the power of blocking your hat to smooth out any lumps, bumps or uneven stitches once you have finished knitting it.
Q6. The sunflower motif can feel playful or classic depending on color choice. Do you have a favorite version or palette you love most
A6. It doesn't necessarily have to be yellow for the flower, but personally I would like to make another version with a pale grey blue and a bright, chartreuse for the flowers. Although, I do also love the orange and yellow version that I knit originally.
Q7. Your designs feel very modern but still rooted in traditional techniques. How do you balance those two worlds?
A7. I think it might feel modern because I am always striving to create something new, that hasn´t been done before. So it feels modern in that way. But knitting color-work is an old tradition, so I have to keep within the rules of stranded colorwork to ensure the design is knit-able and can fit.
Q8. What role does color play in your creative process? Are you drawn to unexpected combinations, or do you have go-to palettes you return to?
A8. I do have my favorites but they have changed over time and often with what is going in and out of style. I do enjoy using unexpected and new combinations too. I find inspiration for colors literally everywhere, from flowers, food, artwork and even a shirt Harry Styles was wearing at his concert!
Q9. The Beanie Brigade is all about making something wearable and meaningful. What do you hope knitters feel when they wear this hat?
A9. I hope they feel joy and it might help please their inner child while wearing their beanie covered in bold and bright flowers!
Q10. This pattern includes multiple sizes and a cozy folded brim. What do you think about fit and wearability when designing accessories?
A10. I think a beanie hat can be quite forgiving depending on if you want negative or positive ease when you wear, it but I wanted to create many size options to fit different head sizes and to help people choose how much ease they have for their hat. I love the folded brim, I think it looks modern and fun and really helps keep your ears warm on a cold winters day!
Q11. Your pieces always feel fun to knit, not just fun to wear. How important is the knitting experience itself when you are designing?
A11. I think it is very important for me personally. If I do not find it fun and entertaining to knit, then I find it very hard to finish something. Funnily enough, I find a plain hat takes longer to knit for me than a color-work hat because I will get bored working with just one color. I like the way that color-work keeps me constantly entertained and I am excited to see the next round of knitting for the motif to appear.
Q12. For someone knitting this hat from stash, what would you suggest they look for when choosing yarn and color contrast?
A12. Definitely try to get gauge with whatever yarn you are choosing so the hat fits you how you want it once it is finished. And do make sure the color contrasts, though this is quite a bold motif, so even low contrast might still show! You can always take a photo of both yarn colors together and remove the saturation in the settings so the colors are in gray. If you can see a difference in gray between the colors, you know it has enough contrast! Or, you can be very good and swatch even (to check gauge and colors).
Q13. What does your creative process look like behind the scenes? Are you sketching, swatching, or going straight to the needles?
A13. I am normally sketching first. I like to envision how the whole piece will look before I start. Then I am charting up the color-work motif. Then I am swatching to work out how many stitches to cast on and how that motif will fit into that number of stitches to create multiple sizes.
Q14. What is inspiring you right now, in knitting or beyond?
A14. There are so many young and new knitters embracing and creating new and unique color-work designs using stranded color-work and intarsia and even both techniques in one piece. I love it when a design feels like I have never seen anything like it before (which I know is hard task with knitting!). I am really enjoying the work by Kendall Ross who creates hand knit, wearable art pieces often with text on them. I recently saw a color-work sweater with a sushi soya sauce fish as the motif on the yoke (Sushi Date Sweater, designed by Phoebe of Friday Nights). I hope to continue making unique, sometimes unexpected knitting designs that help spark some joy too.
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Charlotte Stone has truly built a design world all her own through color and knitwear. Her patterns carry this incredible balance of retro charm, bold creativity, and everyday wearability that makes people instantly fall in love with them. There is a sense of freedom and fun in her work that reminds you knitting can be playful, expressive, and deeply personal all at once.
And truly, that is the magic of Charlotte’s designs. They invite knitters to embrace color, creativity, and a little bit of boldness without taking themselves too seriously. Thank you for being part of June’s Beanie Brigade. We cannot wait to see all of your beautiful Sunflower Power Hats out in the wild.
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Charlotte's Socials