How to Knit a Mini Hat for Beginners
Learn how to knit a mini hat for Innocent Smoothies or knitted hats as egg cozies! I think these mini hats would also make great Christmas Tree Ornaments. What do you think?
This is a super simple Mini Hat Knitting pattern for complete beginners. All you need to know is the Knit and Purl stitch. Perfect for practicing these basic stitches! Next we may have a go at these larger Messy Bun Hats!
The Mini Knitted Hat story…
My daughter came home from school the other day, with one of those “Innocent Smoothie” hats. Each year Innocent Smoothies works with Age Concern to raise awareness and funds. People all over the country knit some mini hats and donate them to the company. They pop them on the drinks.. and each drink sold, raises 25p for Age Concern. How lovely. This by the way is NOT a sponsored post. Ha.
More hats please
Anyway, a friend at school had given one of her hats to my daughter at school. And she wanted more. And asked if we could buy some smoothies (nice marketing Innocent Smoothies). I said “no, we can knit them ourselves”.
Practicing our knitting
Pip Squeak (10) has knitted before over the years, we had one knitting kit she completed, but we hadn’t done much more. So this was a great opportunity to have another go. The Mini Hats are a nice small project – not an overwhelming amount to knit AND only needs the purl and knit stitches. No “knit together” decreasing stitches to confuse a beginner. We even moved on to knitting stripes! Which she loved.
We have made Crochet Egg Cozies before.. now time for some knitting!
Mini Hat Knitting Pattern & Materials:
- We used 5mm needles or 4.5mm needles.
- Ordinary wool – I am not sure what the tickness is.. double knit? But really work with what you have. These mini hats a great for using up left overs!
- We also used a combination of homemade pom poms and shop bought pom poms.
- Scissors
- Wool needle (though a normal needle with a big eye works too)
The Mini Hat Pattern
This mini hat is perfect for the Innocent Smoothie Hat campaign, but also makes the perfect Knitted Hat Egg Cozy!
- Cast on 24 -26 stitches (it really is flexible, we mainly did 24 – if using smaller needles, add 26 stitches)
- Four rows Knit
- 10 rows alternating Purl then Knit – so finish on a knit row (if using smaller needles you can add an extra row or two, but it isn’t that critical!)
- Do NOT CAST OFF but see the instructions below
Later we made an even smaller mini hat for a toy monkey. It was a great opportunity for some maths! We decided that we need to reduce the hat size by about a 1/3. So ended up with 16 stitch, 2 rows of knit, and 6 rows of purl/ knit.
Also note: the first hat Pip Squeak (10) knitted (the blue one with the heart), was a little “painful”. Lots of tears of frustration, because it wasn’t as quick and easy as she thought. She didn’t like the “odd hole” and hers was “not as good as mine”. I reassured her and we persevered. She LOVED the result.. and went on to knit 4 more of her own. Each one neater and the first. She could see her progress!
This is what the pattern looks like. My daughter did the first 4 knit rows in white, this is the rim of the woolly hat.
Then did the main body of the hat in red – 10 rows of alternating first purl stitch and then knit stitch. We could have alternated stripes here. If you wish to do that, I suggest 2 rows of each colours – as the thread carries over more neatly this way.
Very important – do not CAST OFF!
But instead, thread the wool onto a yarn needle and run it through the hoops. Later you will gather this, but not yet. keep it safe to the side.
Fold the knitting in half. Right side in.
Using a mattress stitch, sew the sides together (first image). The second image shows that you now have a “tube”.
Time to gather your hat, by pulling the loose hoops thread together (image 3).
Secure with a couple of stitched. Then turn the hat inside out.
Sew on either a handmade pom pom or a shop bought one!
Once you get more confident, you can experiment. You can also sew on little felt shapes! The little felt heart on the blue hat was great for “hiding” some “beginner’s loops” and dropped stitches!
As mentioned.. we haven’t done MUCH knitting with kids over the years – mainly because it does take time and kids REALLY have to buy into the end result for it to work. This was the perfect project for us as she really wanted these hats!!! At first it was hard and frustrating and she didn’t like a single “loose loop”. But we got there and she is so chuffed and I am so happy she is practicing her knitting! Now to make some as Christmas Ornaments for Granny!
Other Knitting Projects – Messy Bun Hat
