Pompom Beanie

A friend gave me a pattern for a junior crocheted hat from Lion Brand. She wanted to see how our crochet styles matched up and if she should make something like it for her market booth. 

 

The pattern is very easy because you crochet a rectangle and then sew it together to make the hat shape. I really didn't like it.  I followed the pattern how it was written, but it was odd that they had you gather the top end up before sewing up the body. This made it all scrunchy to work with and harder to line up the stripes. I knew this before actually doing it, but I followed the instructions as given.

I didn't take a picture of that hat because I didn't like the finished product. It was ok, but the pattern just annoyed me, I guess because I hate having to check how many stitches I have...since I tend to gain or lose stitches on rectangle things. I like to really have mindless crochet be mindless :)

So I remade the hat differently.... OK to be fair it's no longer the same pattern or even close!  hahaha. The only thing the same is the amount of stitches in the starting chain and the hook size.

Row 1: I chained 56 with the aran fleck from Red Heart.
Row 2: Did an hdc in the 3rd chain from the hook. Did my 54 hdc's across, and then did a sl st join to the top of the first hdc of row 2. (my chain 2 which counts as my first hdc)
Round Rows: I just continued crocheting in the round. I went around and around and around until I had a length of hat I wanted. Beautiful, no brainer, no counting, no slip stitches...just watching myself a movie and crocheting myself a beanie :)
Color Change: I decided to change the color up to Vanna's Choice 'Rust' color. I did this in line with where I joined the original chain together in Row 2. So I considered this the back of my hat.

For the color change: I did the first part of the hdc stitch in aran fleck -- yarn over, insert into stitch, yarn over and pull through (3 loops on hook), then did a yarn over with new color and pulled through.

Round Rows: crocheted and watched a bit more movie

2 Decrease Rounds: In line with the first join and the color change below, I did an hdc decrease (hdc2tog), 4 hdc's, then another hdc2tog, another 4 hdc's etc going all the way around until I met up with my first hdc2tog.

My count didn't work, there wasn't exactly 4 stitches when I got to the decrease, but a spacing of 3 between my last one and the one from the previous row was fine enough. Otherwise I would of skipped ahead or moved my last hdc2tog back a stitch or 2. Anyways, I did an hdc2tog using the stitches on either side of the previous rows hdc2tog so they stacked above each other. Did 3 hdc's, then hdc2tog, 3 hdc's, hdc2tog...continued on until I got back to the start and then fastened off leaving a bit of a tail

I wove the tail in and out between the hdc stitches of the last row and then pulled tight to scrunch up and close off the end of the hat.

Using the same Rust color, I did a band of hdc's around the opening of the hat starting again at the 'back' inline with all my other changes. This time I didn't do it in the round, but did the sl stitch, chain 2 up to the next row method.

Tossed on a flower with a button and made a pompom then went to bed :)