The Halla Hat byJonna Hietala of Laine Magazine was my first venture into brioche knitting, and I really enjoyed it! It was a nice change of pace from some of the larger projects that I’ve been working on, and I liked being able to try something new without committing to a shawl or sweater’s worth of effort. I have finished two hats so far, and I think this might become my go-to hat pattern.
The pattern turned out well with the recommended four skeins of yarn in a fingering weight (three held together for the main color and one for the contrast color), and also with two worsted weight yarns using only one yarn each for the main and contrast color. I don’t use many smaller weight yarns right now, so the stash-busting aspect of this pattern isn’t as useful to me, and I think I will continue making it with only two yarns in the future.
I realized about halfway through the first hat that this pattern is written as a double-knit hat! As I don’t live in a particularly cold climate, I ended up making it about a third of the length for a single layer, used a different bind off method (Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off worked great!) and probably could have bought half the amount of yarn called for. Also, if you are careful about weaving in your ends, the hat works wonderfully as a reversible piece!
The hat pattern is one-size-fits-most in its design and turned out well for me without making any changes for circumference. It sizes up or down pretty easily if you adjust how many stitches you cast on, but make sure to add or subtract an even number to keep the brioche stitch pattern intact.
All in all, this was a great pattern and I look forward to making more!