How to Knit a Hat

Ready to learn how to knit a hat?

Watch our How to Knit a Hat video for step-by-step instructions and follow along with the Easy Peasy Hat Knitting Pattern!

How to Knit a Hat for Beginners

How to Knit a Hat

This simple roll-brimmed hat is a perfect introduction to knitting hats! Using bulky yarn and simple stockinette stitch, this is a fast project that will teach you how to knit a beanie hat in no time at all!

What you’ll need:

110 yards of bulky weight yarn

US 10 – 16″ circular needles

Tapestry needle or crochet hook

stitch markers

Before starting to knit your hat, you’ll want to check your gauge – for more information on knitting gauge, check out out guide here. For this hat, you’ll want to get a gauge of 16 stitches for 4″ in stockinette stitch on US 10 knitting needles.

Directions

Measure your head in inches. You’ll want to measure at the largest point of your head, about where the brim of a stocking hat would hit.

Knit a Gauge Swatch

Cast on 20 stitches and knit a swatch that is 4” long. Take your swatch and measure your number of stitches per inch. Multiply your head measurement in inches by the number of stitches per inch that you knit in your swatch. For example, if your head is 21” around and you knit 4 stitches per inch, you would get 84 stitches. You may want to round down to a multiple of 8 in order to make decreasing easier. Cast on the number of stitches you calculated in steps 1-5.

After casting on your stitches, begin knitting the hat

Join in the round, being careful not to twist stitches. Knit in the round until your hat is 6 – 7 inches long. Try on your hat to see if it the length is right for you. If it’s too short, keep knitting until it feels long enough. If it’s a little too long, you can just roll the brim a little more.

Crown Decreases

On the next round, place a stitch marker every 8 stitches. On the next round, knit until two stitches before the stitch marker, then k2tog (single decrease) those stitches. Slip the stitch marker to your right needle and continue knitting. Continue decreasing in this manner all the way around your hat for every row. When the top of your hat is too small to continue decreasing comfortably, you can pull small loops of the cable out in order to keep knitting. This will allow you to cheat a little and you won’t have to switch to double pointed needles to finish your hat. When you have 4 stitches left on your needles, cut your yarn so that you have a 12” tail left.

Finishing

Using a crochet hook, pull your yarn tail through the remaining four stitches. Pull the yarn tail to close the top of your hat and make the stitches snug up against each other. Use your crochet hook to pull the yarn tail through the top to the inside of the hat. Weave in the two yarn tails using a crochet hook or darning needle. You want to weave in about an inch or so of each tail to prevent them from working loose while you’re wearing the hat. Cut the remaining yarn tails close to the knitted fabric.

Wear your new hat proudly!

Now that you’ve knit your first hat, here are some other hat patterns that you might like:

How to knit a hat free baby knitting patternHow to knit a hat free knitting patternHow to knit a hat free knitting pattern

Looking for more ideas on how to make a knit hat? You can find more hat knitting patterns here!