At the weekend, I finished knitting a hat using brioche knitting. I practiced initially by making a fingerless mitt, but this was my first proper item. This style of knitting creates a double faced fabric, because you knit each row twice, slipping alternate stitches with a yarn over on one round and then knitting (or purling) them on the next round.
I’ve actually found it easier doing two colour brioche as used here, as it is a visible reminder about which round you are on, and makes it easier to follow the structure of the stitch. It also makes a reversible item, as you can see below (this is theoretically the inside). It also makes a very warm and squishy fabric, particularly using merino yarn as I have here.
I made quite a few mistakes with this hat. In fact, I had knitted a good 7 cm before I realised that I had made a very visible error, and because it is so difficult to fix these things with brioche, I just ripped it all back to the plain ribbing and started again.
I’m pretty pleased with the end result though. When you wear it, the fabric stretches and the orange inner ribbing peeks through the outer blue ribs.
