Everyone is asking for patterns for easy and warm hats.

Even if you are a beginner, you might not need a pattern. At least not if you just want something simple. Here is a guide you can follow and make great rounded hats from.

Rounded hat

Find a yarn and a hook that fits the yarn. Your work needs to be a little bit loose, so your hat gets soft and flexible. If your initial tryouts don't feel soft enough, pick a larger hook.

I'm explaining below how you do a single crochet hat pattern. It isn't hard to 'translate' that into other stitch patterns. And whether you crochet in rounds or spiral doesn't matter.

Begin with a Flat Circle

It doesn't have to be a perfect circle! Though you might still get a lot of useful ideas by looking at the article Crochet a (Perfect) Flat Circle.

For a single crochet (sc) pattern you do the rounds like this:

1. make a magic circle (find links for a magic circle in Crochet a (Perfect) Flat Circle).
2. make 6 sc in the magic circle. [6]

Increase 6 times in each of the next rounds. You can do it like this:

3. make 2 sc in each stitch. [12]
4. *inc once, make 1 sc* - Repeat this 6 times [18]
5. *inc once, make 1 sc in next 2 stitches* - Repeat this 6 times [24]
6. *inc once, make 1 sc in next 3 stitches* - Repeat this 6 times [30]
7. *inc once, make 1 sc in next 4 stitches* - Repeat this 6 times [36]
8. ...

Keep increasing till the circumference of the circle is 5cm (2inch) less than the head of the happy new hat owner. Recommended hat circumferences (or diameters) are:


Stop increasing when you have reached the right circumference = do one stitch in each of the previous stitches.

Hat Length

Maybe you are at round 20? Maybe not. Just pretend you are :)

20. make 1 sc in each stitch.
21. make 1 sc in each stitch.
22. ...

Proceed till your hat is long enough. You can see the recommended hat lengths in the table as well. If you want a slouchy model - like the blue one - add 5 cm to the recommended hat length. Also remember to save space for any special brim, if you want that. (More on that in my next post)

Brim

The simplest brim to create is to take advantage of the nature of the crochet stitches. At a certain point your work is likely to curl outwards at the bottom of the hat. You can use this effect as a rolled 'brim'. When you have reached your desired length, then add a few extra rows and close off.

This is what I did with the black cat hat and that is how I started out with the blue hat.

Yarn Usage and Hook Size

If you want to make a hat with a roll brim, here is what I used for the light blue hat on the brim picture: I used 45 gram (1.6 oz) of one of my favorite brands: Arwetta Classic. 210m/50gram (230yards/1.76oz). I used hook 5 mm (US 8/H, UK 6).

My hat size is small adult. The hat was a little bit short, so if I were to keep the roll brim, then I would have made more rounds to cover my ears better. And I could have made the brim in another color.

- - - -

This is actually all there is to the base of a simple rounded hat.
I'll write more about the brim, ears and other hat details in my next post: Guide: Simple Rounded Hat II:II