2 Stash-Busting Knitted Hat Patterns

With basic skills and these easy free knitted hat patterns, you can use up your leftover skeins of yarn and create one-of-a-kind knitted hats.

Head over to the handmade gifts page for more great gift ideas!

If you’ve knitted or crocheted for any length of time, then you know all about a yarn “stash.” It’s the last skein, or part of a skein, you have leftover from projects. I don’t know about you, but my stash can grow from purchasing yarn on sale that I never really found a project for (even though it seemed like the perfect yarn at the time, lol).

My family has joked about the yarn stored all over the house – so finding ways to use it up is a very good thing.

Which is why the year I was able to use up most of my leftover yarn by knitting hats for all the kids in my family – nieces, nephews, and my kids – for Christmas gifts was a banner year.

Can I tell you how much I loved this? Using up what I had (no waste) and giving a gift they liked (and hopefully used) that was handmade, for ZERO dollars? *Insert all the heart eyes here*

Even though I have knitted sweaters, throws, and many scarves, among other things, I have only knitted one hat in my life before this – and it didn’t turn out all that great.

So believe me when I tell you the two patterns that I used are e.a.s.y. with basic stitches and shaping. Once I got it down, I could finish a hat in just a few hours of tv watching so these went pretty quickly, too.

This is a beginner project for sure, though maybe after you’ve completed your first scarf (that everyone seems to start with) and you’ve got your tension even.

I used the ribbed pattern (shown center in the photo above) for just two hats, since the other basic hat pattern seemed to produce a nicer hat that worked well with all the different yarns I had. I kept to wool and wool blend yarns, and made sure to check my gauge since I was using different yarns.

Click through the links below to grab the patterns, get your stash together, and start dreaming up ideas of colorways and patterns.

And have fun!

2 Free Knitted Hat Patterns:

Click here for the free stretchy ribbed hat pattern on Ravelry.

Click here for the free Soft Merino Hats for Everyone pattern from Purl Soho.

 

This is part of 31 days of handmade gifts for the holidays and beyond. Click here to see all the projects in this series.