Well, hopefully that title doesn’t attract any hits from people looking for something completely different!

I have this book, Get your Crochet on – Hip Hats and Cool Caps by Afya Ibomu, from the library right now. I’ve borrowed it before but never got around to making any hats from it, and finally I tackled one of the patterns tonight.

This hat is what I’d call a Rasta hat, in that it’s very slouchy and colourful. However I think my gauge is way tighter than the pattern intended, as I followed it to the letter and achieved more of a beanie.

So I added an extra four rows, repeating the green, and it is now slouchier, though I don’t think it would win any prizes for accommodating dreads!

There are instructions in the book for weaving in elastic on the last row and crocheting over it, but I couldn’t figure it out, so instead I went down from a 6mm hook to a 5mm, half double crocheted another round, then single crocheted another (half treble then double to you UK people) which makes it fit nicely.

It just took me a couple of hours. One thing I would do differently next time is add an extra chain at the beginning of each round. For example, the author tells you to chain 4 at the beginning of the round, then dc and ch2 around. I would ch5 in future, as I have a line up the side of the hat where the mesh is slightly smaller.

Here are some goofy bathroom mirror photos for your entertainment!