This hat has a rather complex history.

It has, in fact, already been published, under a completely different name, and using a completely different set of techniques to make it.
Some years back, I was asked by the team at The Knitter magazine, to design something for them to publish.

I was just in the very early stages of playing around with what I was then still calling “one-pass brioche,” so I wanted to showcase this new and exciting technique in the pattern that I put together for them.

Having initially told me to go wild, because their readers like a challenge, when I delivered the hat and the finished pattern to them, there was concern that the “new” kind of brioche might be a bridge too far, and would put too many people off wanting to make it, so would I re-write the pattern for the traditional, two-pass brioche that people already knew how to do?

Well… yes… I could, and I did.

But actually, the process of working in the round, combining the traditional brioche sections with the DK sections, and being able to transition between them with ease, required a LOT more hard work than simply making it with DKBrioche in the first place.

The pattern, re-jigged for two-pass brioche, and, ironically, FAR more complicated to knit as a result, was eventually published under the name “Ben Nevis,” for reasons I wasn’t told, and will never understand!

The time has come then, for me to finally release the pattern in the form it was always meant to be in, and with a brand new name, and, after all these years, I (and it) can finally find peace!

The hat features an elegant laurel-leaf design that runs around the brim.The leaves then take a vertical turn, and climb up the body of the hat, coming together at the crown. And, oh! That crown!

The DKBrioche sections also feature sinuous cables and decorative decreases to spice thing up that little bit further!

Combining these two techniques into one pattern creates a hat that is incredibly structural, and multi-textured. It is a feast for the fingers while knitting, and a feast for the eyes when finished.
It’s also deliciously warm and squishy, which can’t be bad!