Beginner Crochet Hat Instructions

A skullcap uses leftover yarn and three simple crochet stitches.

Hats are simple enough for a beginner. A single-crochet skullcap is one of the easiest hats to make. The skullcap uses just three stitches: chain, ring and single crochet, and one knot: the reef knot. Skullcaps allow you to use leftover yarn from multiple dye lots. These and granny square afghans are the only time you should use same-color yarn from different dye lots together due to variance in their color strengths.

Things You'll Need

• Optional practice: I or J hook
• G or H hook
• Leftover yarn

Instructions

1. 

   Making a reef knot is almost as simple as tying your shoe.

   Practice making reef knots if you are not familiar with macrame'. Reef knots resemble a standard shoelace knot (Reference 1). Hold the end of a contrasting-color ball of yarn in each hand. Cross the yarn in your dominant hand over the yarn in your off hand and back through the space between the two crossed strands of yarn. The strand that was in your dominant hand is now in your off hand. Cross the off-hand strand over the dominant-hand strand and back through the hole between the two strands. This is the knot you will use to connect strands from different balls of yarn.

2. Pull all your leftover yarn together and decide which colors to use. Begin winding your yarn ball with the most abundant color first. Yarn from the center of your yarn ball will be used last. When you reach the end of the color you are winding, tie a reef knot to join it to the next color and continue winding. Ball the color you want to use for the center of your skullcap last.

3. 

   A crochet hook looks like a short knitting needle with a bend at one end.

   Use a G or H hook with standard worsted-weight yarn. If you have thinner or thicker yarn, adjust your hook size. Crochet expert Connie Hubbard of Vintage Crafts, Patterns and Designs advises choosing the yarn first and buying a hook that is similar in diameter.

4. Pull the end of a piece of yarn away from your ball and bend it back on itself about two inches to make an upside-down "U." Lay your crochet hook across the upside-down "U," so that the loop sticks above it and the ends are hanging down.

5. Hold the short end of the yarn while making the loop large enough for your yarn ball to fit through it. Pass the ball and the short end through the loop, over the hook. Pull the knot tight. The knot you just made is called a lark's head knot, because the two strands passing through the loop look like a bird's beak.

6. Hold the short end of the yarn in your off hand while you pull the yarn attached to the ball through the lark's head knot on your hook to make a new loop. Repeat until you have a 3-stitch chain.

7. Push your hook through the "V" of the first chain stitch and pull a single-crochet loop through to connect the chain into a ring.

8. Poke your hook through the ring and pull the working yarn strand through the hole, leaving a loop on the hook. Catch the working yarn from behind the ring and pull the resulting loop through the loop on the hook. Repeat until the original ring cannot be seen.

9. Make a single chain stitch before you begin to crochet the first outside row of the ring. Poke your hook through both sides of the "V," going around the outside edge of the starter ring. Pull the working thread through the hole and repeat by poking through the next "V." Make a single chain stitch when you finish the row and connect the last stitch to the first stitch in this row.

10. Repeat the previous step, including beginning with a single chain stitch, for each row until you have a circle large enough to fit over the back of your head, behind your ears. For most people, it would have a 5- to 6-inch diameter. The single chain stitch you add at the beginning of each row is what makes the circumference of the hat continue to grow.

11. Beginning with the next row, do not make a single chain stitch before you begin crocheting the next row around the circle. This keeps the length constant, causing the hat to pull into a bell shape by the time you make the fifth or sixth row.

12. Continue to crochet until the hat will sit comfortably on the back of your head, against the backs of your ears. Pull your final knot back through to the inside of the hat so that it will not show. Tie off with a reef knot.

References

• Ian Fieggen's Shoelace Site: Tie a Reef Knot
• Vintage Patterns and Designs: The Right Crochet Hook

Resources

• All Free Crafts: Boy's Beanie Hat Double Crochet Pattern