This pattern is retired and not usually available. However, I make many of my retired patterns available for a few days twice a year, and this is one of those times! It will be available from now through some time on Monday, December 2. Then it will go away again.

In the summer of 2022, I realized that I found maintaining a back catalog of hundreds of patterns 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.

A few favorites have come back, and lots of new things have come out! But the vast majority of the old patterns are retired and are no longer generally available.

However, enough folks have asked about old favorites that I make many of the retired patterns available for a few days twice a year (usually in early summer and around Thanksgiving).

• If you see the buy buttons on this page, you’ve caught it on one of the days it’s available!
• 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 are available, subscribe to the mailing list or patreon, or keep an eye on my instagram.

Otherwise adverb in a different way or manner

I should have a story for you. I really should! I should tell you something about a lousy day being made better by spending some time outside somewhere green and leafy, or about this pattern symbolizing growth and rebirth, or about overcoming some sort of obstacle while I knit it.

And I could do that! If you really really really needed me to, I could channel my inner ninth grader with an english essay due tomorrow and come up with something moderately convincing. Probably. If you really pushed the issue.

But the thing is, I knit this because it was pretty and it was easy and it made me happy. And this spring, when I was knitting this, I sort of needed something that was pretty and easy and made me happy.

So now, on the off chance that one or two of you might need the same things from your knitting right about now, here it is. I hope that it’s exactly what you need now the same way it was exactly what I needed then!

And feel free to work on your own moving story of growth and change and heartbreak and obstacles overcome and whatever else you’d like. Those can totally be fun under the right circumstances! But sometimes…sometimes I just make something because Iike how it looks!

The hat is written in six sizes (castons of 88, 96, 104, 112, 120, or 128 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, 6, or 6.5 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 19 and 25.5 inches (with lots of points in between).

This is perfect for you if:

• You share my helpless fondness for knitted leaves
• Something pretty and easy that makes you happy sounds pretty darn good right now

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)