Knit Your Own Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

The finished wall hanging, with the real lighthouse behind it. National Park Service.

The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has helped keep ships safe since 1870, and it has also become an icon that inspires artists and craftspeople. This knitted wall hanging of it was designed by Ranger Stephanie DeMatteo of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, an intermediate knitter and beginning pattern designer. The Park Service invites anyone to use and adapt the pattern, and to share a photo of the finished piece with the park.

About the pattern

• Size: about 8 inches wide and 24 inches long, depending on materials.
• Technique: knit flat from the top down in Fair Isle; it could also be worked in intarsia or duplicate stitch, depending on skill and comfort.
• Stitches and rows: cast on 44 stitches; the design runs 135 rows before binding off.
• Other crafts: the color charts can be adapted for crochet, cross-stitch, mosaic or gem painting.

Materials

• Yarn in five colors: A, blue-gray; B, black; C, white; D, tan; E, red
• Knitting needles that give a stitch close to square
• Sewing needle and thread
• Two 12-inch dowel rods

The designer used 100-gram skeins of worsted-weight cotton yarn; one skein of each color was more than enough.

Working it

The pattern uses three abbreviations: K (knit), P (purl) and Rep (repeat). Work the design from the charts below or from the park's row-by-row written instructions. When the knitting is done:

1. Bind off, and block if needed.
2. Wrap the top and bottom edges around the dowel rods and secure them with needle and thread.
3. Run scrap yarn between the two rods to keep the hanging from stretching.

The finished piece. National Park Service.

Charts

Knitting chart, part 1. National Park Service.

Knitting chart, part 2. National Park Service.

Color chart, part 1, adaptable to other crafts. National Park Service.

Color chart, part 2. National Park Service.

Sources

• National Park Service, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, "Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Knitting Pattern," with full row-by-row written instructions. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/cape-hatteras-lighthouse-knitting-pattern.htm
• A few rows of the Park Service's written instructions are incomplete as published (for example, rows 69 and 71 omit stitches or a color), so work those rows from the charts.