How to Crochet a Sun Hat Brim

I’ve been busy working on my new baby elephant parade sunhat. While designing the sun hat I found I needed to figure out a new way to make a sun hat brim since I wanted a different style to hats I’d made in the past.

Continuing the increase where it left off at the top section of the hat has worked fine for hats I’ve made before – like Spiral Halloween Hat.

This likely worked due to the yarn being thicker. I found that when I made my Floral Summer Sunhat, using the same method, resulted in a floppy brim. The floppy brim does work well with that style of hat, but this time I wanted something different. So, off I went to learn how to make sun hat brims.

I found this sun hat brim pattern from My Hobby is Crochet (above). It had the same number of stitches at the top of the brim as I had in the hat I was making so, not knowing how it was going to turn out for me, I followed the pattern to add a brim to my hat. It worked, but I found it a bit too small and curly. This is likely because of the fine thread I was using and also I worked it a little too tight. My hat:

Anyway, I wasn’t totally happy with how it looked on my hat so off I went to learn some more.

Then I found this helpful video tutorial and blog post by Rainbow Warrior. Photo below. From that I really learned what I needed to do to design my own brim that worked on my hat.

I saw her tip of single crocheting in the front loops only to start the brim and make it stick out. I’ve seen this done before on hats and other items and how it forms an angle between the two rows. I decided to do this on my hat too.

Next I saw how much she increased by but felt like it wouldn’t work as well on my hat so I went for less and made sure it was compatible with all sizes of my hat pattern. I really loved her tip of placing the hat on the table between each round of ‘sc in each around’ to see if the edges turned up to know when it was time for the next increase.

So here is my own sun hat brim pattern. I didn’t want it too big since it’s a child’s sun hat I’ve designed for boys, but I wanted it to stick out more than other boy sun hats.

The hat I’m making starts out with the brim then I add the top section later, so that’s why I’ve only got the brim to show you right now. This brim can be added to a regular top down hat as long as your stitch count on your last round is a multiple of 4.

For my hat I used Red Heart It’s a Wrap in Comedy (affiliate link) and a D/3 – 3.25mm hook.

I made my brim to fit ages 2-5 years and started out by chaining 112, sl st to join, then I worked a half double crochet into each chain along the bottom of the foundation chain. Then did another row of half double crochets into those.

Next I moved onto the brim.

Rnd 1: Ch 1, working in the front loops only, sc in each around, sl st to join.

Rnd 2: Ch 1, sc in same space and each of next 3, [2 sc in next, 1 in each of next 3] around. Sl st to join.

Rnd 3: Ch 1, sc in each around, sl st to join. REPEAT this round until the edge of your brim turns up slightly when sat on the table (I did 3 rounds)

Rnd 4: Ch, sc in same space and each of next 4, [2 sc in next, 1 in each of next 4] around. Sl st to join.

Rnd 5: Ch 1, sc in each around, sl st to join. REPEAT this round until the edge of your brim turns up slightly when sat on the table (I did 4 rounds)

Rnd 6: Ch, sc in same space and each of next 5, [2 sc in next, 1 in each of next 5] around. Sl st to join.

Rnd 7: Ch 1, sc in each around, sl st to join. REPEAT this round until the edge of your brim turns up slightly when sat on the table (I did 4 rounds)

I fastened off, switched to my contrasting color and joined with a slip stitch.

Rnd 8: Ch1, backwards sc in each around, sl st to join in the stitch you started in to finish.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Watch out for my new baby elephant sun hat pattern coming very soon! Subscribe to my newsletter to get it as soon as it’s ready! (Just click on another post to get the subscribe box to pop up again)

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