Brioche Hat

I needed a project small enough that I could knit it standing up (while waiting for the bus), interesting enough that I could do it for 20 minutes with nothing to distract me, but easy enough that I wouldn't need a pattern in front of me.

So I started another hat. Now you know why I have so many hat projects.

I actually already have a hat on the needles, but it is a complicated mosaic pattern on yarn that needs good tension (read: must be sitting down) on double pointed needles (read: doesn't travel well). I'll try to post something about that project sometime soon.

But today, I am going to talk about my new brioche hat.

For my birthday, my boss gave me a gift card to my LYS. Dangerous, I know, tempting me into the shop when I have so much stash to use already. But I was good. I bought two bulky-weight skeins of yarn, one solid, one variegated. They were super-soft (merino wool) and I was thinking that I needed a winter hat for myself, so I can stop borrowing my husband's.

Cascade 128 Superwash

I was looking for patterns that would highlight the two colors together. My mother-in-law has been working in brioche stitch, and it looks great, so I was thinking that I would try the same. I found a great brioche hat pattern in one of my knitting books: Weekend Knitting by Wendy Easton.

I don't use the patterns in my books nearly as much as I should. I have a bunch of them that I have bought or that have been gifts (that's actually most of them). I love my stitch dictionaries, but I rarely follow patterns too closely. And so many of the patterns I have are colorwork or need specific yarns: I would rather use the yarns I have.

That said, I had never tried brioche before, and I had heard that it was really hard. Having done it, it is not too bad, but takes a bit of time to get the hang of it and figure out what is going on. A youtube video helped too: trying to describe it is very difficult. But, I will put in my two cents: maybe it will help someone who thinks like I do.

This is the pattern in the round, which is easier (I found):

Set up (color 1): knit 1. *put yarn to front and slip 1 purlwise. knit 1 without putting yarn to back to make a yarn-over. repeat from *.

Round 1 (color 2): put yarn to from and *slip 1 purlwise (this will be color 1). yarn-over. purl two together (1 yarn-over of color 1 and one stitch of color 2). repeat from *.

Round 2 (color 1): knit two together (1 yarn-over of color 2 and one stitch of color 1). *put yarn to front and slip 1 purlwise (this will be color 2). knit two together without putting yarn to back to make a yarn-over. repeat from *.

Repeat rounds 1 and 2.

To do it flat, do a four row repeat: round 1 (color 2), round 2 (color 1), turn, round 2 (color 2), round 1 (color 1).

My hat looks like this so far:

Outside

Inside

The material is really stretchy and thick, and I love how the colors look.

Depending on how the crown goes, I might submit this one to the state fair.