This pattern (along with most of my earlier work) was retired in the summer of 2022. However, it may be available for a few days once or twice a year. Read on for details!

In the summer of 2022, I realized that maintaining a back catalog of hundreds of patterns was kind of overwhelming. I couldn’t do it and still release new things. So I took my old patterns down so I could keep doing new work.

Since then, a handful of my favorites have come back, and lovely new things have come out. But the vast majority of the old patterns are retired and will no longer be generally available.

However, enough folks have asked about some old favorites that I’m planning to make many of the retired patterns available for a few days once or twice a year (most likely in late spring and then again in the fall around Thanksgiving).

• If you see the buy buttons on this page, you’ve caught it on one of the days it’s available, and you’re welcome to grab it!
• If you don’t see the buy buttons on this page, then it’s not currently available.
• If you want to hear when the retired patterns will be available, subscribe to the mailing list or patreon, or keep an eye on my instagram.

Incidence noun the arrival of something (such as a projectile or a ray of light) at a surface

This is a companion to Refraction (the light purple hat in the picture at the bottom of this page.

This should not be this pretty. It should not be this pretty and it should not be this much fun. It’s far too simple to be so enchanting. And yet, somehow, it is.

Now, before we go any further, I want to issue a little disclaimer. I’m a brioche newbie (this is my second brioche project). But that’s actually ok, because it means you can absolutely do this project. Because either you’ve done brioche before (so you’re way more experienced than me), or you’ve not done it before, but you’re going to go watch this video (which is more or less how I learned) and practice for an hour, and then you’ll have just about as much experience as me. Either way, if I can do it, you can totally do it!

And I think you’re going to want to do it. Because it really is just about the most perfect example of how one tiny, perfectly placed flourish can create something ridiculously lovely. The vast majority of this is just plain old ribbing. But every now and then (about once every ninety stitches or so), you work one little fancy bit, and the result is sort of magical.

Oh and it’s reversible too! Both sides of the fabric are lovely. Deciding which side you like best may very well be the hardest part of the whole project.

The hat is written in three sizes (castons of 80, 96, and 112 stitches), and you should feel free to adjust your gauge a bit to fine tune the fit of the hat. Just be sure that you’re working at a gauge that gives you a fabric you like with your chosen yarn!

I recommend working at something around 4.5, 5, 5.5, or 6 stitches per inch, and I’ve included a table to help you figure out what gauge you’ll want to use for your size. With that range of sizes and gauges, the hat will fit a head between 18.5 and 24.5 inches (with lots of points in between).

You’ll need two different yarns, about the same amount of each. You should be able to very comfortably make any size with 150 yards of each yarn (I needed about 125 yards of each and I have a big head).

Oh and you totally don’t have to use mohair yarn if that looks scary to you or isn’t your cup of tea. This works beautifully with fingering, sport, or dk weight yarns, not just fluffy bits of nothingness!

This is perfect for you if:

• You love the idea of reversible hats (or you just know your own limitations and know you are eventually bound to pull a hat out of your coat pocket in the dark and jam it on your head without checking which way is facing out, so might as well have both sides be pretty)
• You have come to realize that a brioche hat crown is a thing of beauty and you pretty much need one on the needles right this minute

It’s not for you if:

• You don’t like charts (the pattern uses charts)
• You hate swatching (you need to swatch to check your needle size)
• You don’t already know how to brioche and you don’t want to learn (the pattern is not a brioche tutorial, but if you can knit, purl, slip, and yarn over, and you have just a teeny tiny bit of faith in yourself, you can totally do this)