Citrus Hat Trio

A crochet preemie hat is a terrific thing to donate and can be a great way to use up partial skeins or scrap yarn. Cute, soft and quick, you can crochet up these tiny hats to donate or for the preemie or newborn in your life.

Back in the dawn of time, before you could find size charts for crochet patterns all over the internet, I was commissioned by a yarn company to design some preemie hats. I could not wrap my brain around how small they looked and was told “the way to check is – a preemie hat fits on an orange, a newborn hat fits on a grapefruit.” Thus my models for this pattern!

Preemie 1 is on a regular orange, Preemie 2 is on a navel orange, and Newborn is on a Ruby Red grapefruit. Interestingly when I compared the finished hats to a popular crochet hat size chart they were right on the money. The things we did in the olden days often work!

Now you can get the Preemie 1 size here free on the blog (now and forever) and the ad-free sized version can be purchased at Ravelry

Finished Sizes:

Note: Sizes are noted unstretched. As I used a cotton yarn they did stretch out a bit in use.

Preemie 1  – 9 ½ ” in circumference, 3 ¾” crown height

Preemie 2 – 10 ¾ ” in circumference, 4 ½” crown height

Newborn is 12” in circumference, 5” crown height

Materials:

Small amounts 100% cotton Sport weight (CYCA 2, Fine) yarn. Models shown in Patons Grace (100% cotton; 50g; 136 yds), I got 3 sample hats (1 in each size) out of one skein of Ginger

Hook size E/4/3.50mm or size needed to obtain gauge

Gauge:

9 sts x 7 rows (3 dc rows + 4 sc rows) = 2” in alternating dc row/sc row pattern

Abbreviations:

Ch – chain

Dc – double crochet

Rep – repeat

Rnd – round

Sc – single crochet

Sk – skip

Sl st – slip stitch

Hat:

Preemie 1:

Start with a magic ring (or if you don’t want to, ch 3, join into a ring with sl st in first ch).

Rnd 1: Ch 1, 6 sc in ring. Join rnd with sl st in first sc. 6 sc

Rnd 2: Ch 1, 2 sc in each sc around. Join rnd with sl st in first sc. 12 sc

Rnd 3: Ch 1, sc in first sc, sc in next sc, *2 sc in next sc, sc in next sc. Rep from * around. Join rnd with sl st in first sc. 18 sc

Rnd 4: Ch 1, 2 sc in first sc, sc in each of next 2 sc, *2 sc in next sc, sc in each of next 2 sc. Rep from * around, join rnd with sl st in first sc. 24 sc

Rnd 5: Ch 3, dc in same st as rnd join, dc in next sc, *2 dc in next sc, dc in next sc. Rep From * around. Join rnd with sl st in top of beg-ch-3. 36 dc

Rnd 6: Ch 1, 2 sc in first sc, sc in each of next 5 sc, *2 sc in next sc, sc in each of next 5 sc. Rep from * around. Join rnd with sl st in first sc. 42 sc

Rnd 7: Ch 3, dc in each sc around. Join rnd with sl st in top of beg-ch-3.

Rnd 8: Ch 1, sc in each dc around. Join rnd with sl st in first sc.

Rnds 9 – 12: Rep Rnds 7 – 8 twice.

Rnd 13: Ch 1, sc in first sc, sk 2 sc, 5 dc in next sc, *sc 2 sc, sc in next sc, *sk 2 sc, 5 dc in next sc. Rep from * around, sk 2 sc, join rnd with sl st in first sc. End off.

Weave in all ends.

Thanks for participating!