2 Dec 2018: DONE! Love, love, love. So warm and lovely. This reminds me how much I love Malabrigo Worsted. It’s perfect for hats! I will definitely make this again, and I do want to try to do one withe brioche. I like the 90 stitch CO; less that that would’ve felt snug, I think. LOVE!

30 Nov 2018: Let’s try this again. Things were going well with the brioche, but I got to the third round of purls and realized that I was almost certainly going to lose yarn chicken. :( Instead of actually pushing through to see (which I do now regret a bit), I ripped back and am now going to do it according to pattern (so k1/p1 rib) because that should use less yarn.

I am kind of sad because I was liking the look of the brioche, but I’m committed to using this yarn for this hat at this point, and the combination of using 8s, CO 90 stitches, making a deeper brim, and using brioche was not looking feasible with the yardage. I think I could have gotten away with slightly fewer brim rows (maybe 11 or 12 instead of 15 per side), but the needle size is what it needed to be (I’m a tight knitter), and I think the 90 stitch CO is going to be right, too.

25 Nov 2018: A blizzard warning is just the time to cast on a copycat version of the hat I saw EVERYWHERE last night at the Overland Park Arboretum’s luminary walk!

Modifications
Used a hodgepodge of modifications from others’ projects (cheezhead65, Beloucattoo, clariknit, and DeckDiva) including use of brioche instead of ribbing in the hat body. Note! I ended up doing just k1/p1 rib instead of brioche because I was afraid I’d lose yarn chicken. However, I otherwise used the steps below.

On 7s:
CO 90 using crochet CO.
K first round before starting twisted rib.
K 15 rounds in twisted rib.
P one round (for brim folding).
K 15 rounds in twisted rib.
Placed stitches from provisional CO onto second circular needle and knit together with live stitches.

On 8s:
Knit 1 round.
Purled 6 rounds, slipping first p stitch pwise wyib.
Knit 1 round.
Brioche prep round.
Four repeats of brioche (so 8 rounds total). I did brp THEN brk because when I did it the other way (brk then brp, which is per the Craftsy tutorial), the more textured part was on the WS inside the hat. I ripped back and set it up again and am now doing it brp then brk per this tutorial from The Unapologetic Knitter. Update: That didn’t actually fix it. It must be a tension issue having to do with the knits and purls being different tensions. It looks okay, I guess, so I am going to keep going.
(k1, k2tog) round.
K round.
Repeat this twice more for a total of three purl/brioche sections.

Crown decreases:
K3 rounds beyond last repeat.
K2tog around.
K3 rounds.
K2tog around (k last stitch; there’s an odd number of stitches on this round).
K1 round.
K2tog around.
Thread yarn through remaining stitches.

HAVE THE MOST DELICIOUSLY WARM HEAD.

Love, love, love.

New Stuff
On this project, I learned…

1. How to join provisional CO stitches to live stitches to make a turned brim.
2. How to do brioche in the round (even though I didn’t use it in the final, completed project).