I wanted to make a hat for a friend and set myself a challenge at the same time. After consultation with my friend and considering her style, I selected some yarns in the weight and colors she wanted and did some swatching to try out some Tunisian crochet stitches, mixed with standard crochet brims. She picked out the Tunisian full stitch with a slip stitch brim in the baby alpaca grande hand painted. (Which shows very good taste in yarn!) After some more swatching, I decided to work it flat and seam, as it actually looked better than in the round. I took inspiration from the Back in Brugge beanie for construction.

Slip stitch crochet is tough because there is almost nothing to the stitches and I find I lose stitches without ever figuring out where. I was sure it would make a nice sturdy brim that would work well with a slouchy crown, and not stretch out too much, which is always a danger with 100% alpaca. I took an excellent slip stitch crochet workshop with Vashti Braha a number of years ago and still had my notes to work with. A bulky yarn with a pointy hook is the way to go (I used a ChiaoGoo hook for brim and crown.)

I chained 56 and worked slip stitch, in back loop only, for the brim until it was as wide as I wanted (after some trial and error to make it large enough, slip stitch tends to “shrink” even if you don’t lose stitches). The last row had 54 stitches but it worked so I decided to keep going. I rotated the brim, picked up the unworked loops in the foundation chain, as a Tunisian foundation row.

The crown is worked in Tunisian full stitch, which is a two row repeat, as these stitches have to be offset to create the gorgeous stretchy fabric. I kept my gauge pretty tight (gauge mentioned above is for the crown) because I knew from swatching this yarn would bloom quite a bit when blocked. I ended up with 27 rows, measuring 11.5 inches to the brim including bind off. I used mattress stitch to seam. To top it off, I added a faux fur pom pom from Little Quinn Designs using a button from Katrinkles to attach it so it could easily be removed for washing or to change it up.

I’m really happy with how this turned out. If you know me, you know how strongly I feel about swatching, and this project would not have worked without extensive swatching.