Down the Row Hat

The pattern for a top-down knitted hat

In the blog post about V-stitch Striped Beanie, I already talked a little bit about knitting and crocheting for charities. From time to time I join different groups of volunteers to create projects for different causes. Many times I knitted and crocheted hats, and when I do that, I like to use different patterns or give an extra twist on one specific pattern. Basically doing the same project more than twice is boring for me. That is why I prefer to have several patterns on my hands, that are easy to customize.

One more thing, sometimes when you knit or crochet for charities, some people donate yarn to a group of volunteers. And not always is this the case of new full skeins, many times it is only partial skeins. If you have similar yarn in different colors, you can do for example stripes but sometimes you’ll have some oddball that you can’t mix with everything else and it’s kinda enough for the whole hat but you don’t know how long you can make the hat and you want to use the yarn up to the max. In this situation, I love to do top-down hats.

You start on top of the hat with only a couple of stitches, increase the crown until you have enough stitches for the needed circumference, and continue to knit almost till the end of the yarn, just leave enough to bind off.

Down the Row Hat is a pattern for a top-down hat. You can very easily customize it for any size and length. The pattern includes 4 sizes, and you’ll decide how long the hat will be, maybe just a beanie, or a more slouchy style, maybe you need folded brim for extra warmth, it’s up to you. Look at these variations that I made.

To make this project you need to know how to knit and purl, and how to work in the round, including small circumference in the round. The pattern doesn’t specify how to divide stitches between needles for the crown. Choose your preferable needles (4 DPNs, 5 DPNs, or circular) and divide stitches as you usually do for small circumferences.

The pattern uses lifted increases, if you don’t like them, you can substitute them with other types of increases. The pattern shows which lifted increase equivalent to which stitches, for example, LLI = K1 + M1 (LLI - left lifted increase, K - knit, M1 - make 1).

To make this project you’ll need:

Worsted weight yarn, between 120 yds (109 m) and 170 yds (155 m) depending on the size and length of the hat.

Size US 8 (5 mm) set of double pointed needles and circular needles length 16” (40 cm) or 32”-40” (80-100 cm) circular needles if you prefer to use the magic loop method. Tapestry needle and marker.

Here is the pattern

Down the Row Hat on Ravelry

Down the Row Hat on Payhip

Please, if you’re sharing your finished projects on social media, tag me @natalia_yarncraft and use the hashtag #DownTheRowHat