"Summer" Trails Hat

This past summer, my husband and I were getting ready for another backpacking trip. This time, we were going to be climbing South Sister, and then hiking around the Three Sisters in the three sisters wilderness. The forecast said that it was supposed to be about 40 degrees on the summit, with wind.

Knowing how chilly I get, I knew I needed a little wool hat to keep my noggin warm. I found some scrap wool yarn in my yarn stash, and set out to make a simple wool hat. It was cute, with stripes of dark gray, light gray, and teal green.

My husband came home and decided he wanted it. Ah well.

So I went to the yarn store and bought myself some pretty purple yarn I thought would go with my daypack. At that point, I forgot that my down jacket was also purple. Hmm...

I finished this hat on the way to the trailhead. It was about a three hour drive from our house, but this simple hat design did not require three hours to execute. No ma'am. It is your basic double-crochet hat and works up super-quick.

Supplies

• Size I or 5.5mm crochet hook
• I used part of a skein of Patons North America Classic Wool, worsted weight yarn and a little leftover light gray of the same kind for the edging. 
• Scissors
• A long car ride to the trailhead...optional, but oh, so fun!

Abbreviations

• st - stitch
• ch - chain stitch 
• sc - single crochet
• dc - double crochet

Starting at the toe... 
To begin: Make a magic ring, 

Round 1: ch 2 (counts as first dc, here and throughout pattern), 11 dc in the magic ring, join with slst to top of ch2
Round 2: ch 2, dc in same st, 2 dc in each st around, join with slst to top of ch2
Round 3: ch 2, dc in same st, *1 dc in next st, 2 dc in next st*, repeat * * around (ends with 1 dc), join with slst to top of ch2
Round 4: ch 2, dc in same st, *1 dc in the next 2 sts, 2 dc in the third*, repeat * * around (ends with 1 dc), join with slst to top of ch2

Here you have a choice, you can skip to round 6 if you would like a tighter-fitting hat (I did) or you can continue the increase in order to make it larger with round 5. 

Round 5: ch 2, dc in same st, * 1 dc in the next 3 sts, 2 dc in the fourth*, repeat * * around (ends with 1 dc), join with slst to top of ch2

Round 6: ch2, dc in each st around, join with slst to top of ch2

Rounds 7-14 (or as long as you need): repeat round 6

Round 15: ch2, dc in each st around, join with slst (pulling up the new color) to the top of ch2 (you can look on youtube for how to do this, but it saves cutting the thread, making a knot, and starting a new yarn... although if that's simpler for you, go for it)

Round 16: ch1 (counts as first sc), sc in each st around (trap your yarn tails from the color change inside your sc) , join with slst to top of ch1, cut thread, tie off, tuck in ends. 

And there you go! A quick and simple, thin but wool summer trail hat! 


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.