I often find free crochet hat patterns that I love, but which call for yarn I don’t have on hand. When I have a few minutes to crochet, I want to do it immediately, there’s no time for shopping so I need to find a pattern that works for the yarn, or I need to make the yarn I have work for the pattern. That’s exactly what I did when I discovered the adorable free Beth Hat crochet pattern by Amanda Saladin.

Her adorable winter hat called for a bulky yarn, but the yarn I wanted to use was a medium worsted, so I adjusted the pattern by changing to smaller hook sizes and adding stitches to each row (to determine how many stitches to add, I determined how many stitches with the smaller hooks it took to make the gauge given in the pattern and added that number to each row). You can see how different the texture looks just by making those changes. Speaking of the texture, it’s created by a modified bean stitch which I found really fun to do!

I used Red Heart Amazing Yarn which has some wool in it so when I washed and blocked it, it achieved this wooly look which I love. I think my ribbing looks longer because of the way the self-striping yarn worked out as part of the body of the hat as well. It’s the same as Beth’s, it just looks larger.

Because of its wool content, this hat is fabulously warm and after washing, it’s also really soft. The colors are beautiful in person and the changes in color are very gradual so they blend beautifully.

Since this hat was for my 78-year old mother, I skipped the pom-pom at her request and I think it looks great without it. The rust color around her face is very flattering and the overall color scheme looks good with so many colors that it’ll match just about any winter coat.

My mother loves her new hat and I really enjoyed making up the Beth Hat crochet pattern by Amandapattern. She’s also created the same hat in a messy bun version so check that out too.

Have you tried making changes in a pattern to fit your size and yarn needs?

Buy Supplies for this Crochet Project:

Original Hat =Supplies

Yarn:  1 skein Lion Brand Scarfie #209 Charcoal/Aqua (Acrylic/Wool, each 5.3oz/150g and 312 yds/285 meters)

Crochet Hooks: K and L

Notions: yarn needle, pom-pom maker

My Alternative Hat Supplies