Does this look familiar to you?

If you’re like me, you just can’t part with your yarn. You finish a project, and even though you only have a small amount of yarn left, you wrap it up into a little ball and save it. But what will you do with it?

How about this….

At this time of the year when everyone is focused on cleaning out and organizing, I figured I would put my basket of leftover yarn and my free Versatile Earflap Hat Pattern to work to make something extra cute and fun to wear (plus with all the colors it will go with so many things). I love that I could make this hat from what otherwise could have been thrown in the garbage. The only bad thing about it – lots of ends to weave in!

So if you have a basket of yarn leftovers that you are looking to use, grab my Versatile Earflap Hat Pattern here and get to work. As I was making the hat pictured above, I took rough measurements of the yardage required for each round and I made a handy dandy chart for you. You can download the chart I made by clicking here.

Just measure the small lengths of yarn you have on hand to see if they are long enough for the hat you want to make. Be sure when you are measuring that you don’t stretch the yarn or else your length of yarn will actually be too short. For the earflaps and edgings, I used about 26 yards of orange for the child size hat. You may need a little more for the adult size hat, but that will be more than enough for the smaller sizes.

Additionally if you don’t like the look of every round being a different color, you can use the chart to see if you have enough yardage to add just a stripe or two to a solid color hat. I like this idea so much that I set up a station so that if I have leftover yarn from a project I can label it for a future project.

Oh, the possibilities! I can’t wait to fill it up and get creating.

I hope you have enjoyed this Free Pattern Friday and that you can put your scrap basket to good use too! Thanks for stopping by!!

Need a quick and easy handmade gift idea? This free crochet pattern will show you how to make these cute little cozies for the small travel bottles of hand sanitizer (2 fl. oz. size).

They look great on their own…

…or you can embellish them any way you want!

These monsters reside on my boys’ school bags to help kill germs and keep them healthy. All the embellishments were cut from felt and sewn on. I’m not going to lie – that took at long time, a lot longer than crocheting the cozy – but I think they turned out adorable and my boys love them.

The cozies in these pictures are going to make great little gifts this holiday season, and they were super easy. The embellishments are just fabric stickers intended for scrapbooking. I actually got mine as a daily deal at PickYourPlum so I can’t give you a link to these exact stickers, but I think any fabric embellishments that have a very sticky back will work well.

So go ahead and download the pattern by clicking the download button above and with a little bit of time and a little bit of yarn, you can make this for someone on your list (or yourself) too. I hope you will love it!

I just loved the Irish Flag Colorblock Hats I made for my boys for St. Patrick’s Day so I decided to make one for Halloween too – the Candy Corn Colorblock Hat. I used Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Yarn in white, orange and yellow. It will be the perfect hat to wear to our town’s Halloween Parade this week!

Wanna make one? You can download the Versatile Earflap Hat Pattern here, and then take note of where to change colors for the size you are making below.

0-3 Months

• Work rounds 1 through 7 in white
• Switch to orange for rounds 8 through 10
• Switch to yellow for round 11, earflaps and both edgings

3-6 Months

• Work rounds 1 through 8 in white
• Switch to orange for rounds 9 through 11
• Switch to yellow for round 12, earflaps and both edgings

6-12 Months

• Work rounds 1 through 8 in white
• Switch to orange for rounds 9 through 12
• Switch to yellow for round 13, earflaps and both edgings

Toddler

• Work rounds 1 through 9 in white
• Switch to orange for rounds 10 through 13
• Switch to yellow for rounds 14 & 15, earflaps and both edgings

Child

• Work rounds 1 through 11 in white
• Switch to orange for rounds 12 through 16
• Switch to yellow for rounds 17 & 18, earflaps and both edgings

Teen/Adult

• Work rounds 1 through 12 in white
• Switch to orange for rounds 13 through 18
• Switch to yellow for rounds 19 & 20, earflaps and both edgings

Earlier this year I made Crochet Football Applique Hats for my two boys for Superbowl Sunday. The hats looked so cute and it was a fun way to show team spirit. Of course, when my nephew saw them, he wanted one of his own. His mom had the great idea of adding his favorite player’s number to the hat.

Now that football season is here again, I thought I would share the idea with you. Find all the information you need to make the Football Applique Hat here. Then simply cut the number you would like to use out of felt and sew it to the hat with a running stitch.

This idea isn’t just for professional teams either. It would be great to use for your own football players in their team colors too – a special hat made just for them!

Nothing puts me in the mood to crochet more than cooler temperatures. Fall is my favorite season and I’m so excited it is finally here! One of the best parts of fall is that it is apple season. To celebrate fall (and a friend’s new baby) I had to make an apple hat from my Versatile Earflap Hat Pattern, of course.

To make an apple hat of your own, simply follow the instructions in my pattern available here, making the entire hat in red. Then follow the instructions below to make a stem and a leaf. Sew the stem and leaf to the top of the hat and add braids to the earflaps. Now you have a sweet apple hat too!

Stem

Ch 12. Dc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc in next ch, sc in next 2 ch, sl st in next 6 ch. Fasten off leaving a long tail to sew the stem to the hat.

Leaf

Ch 10. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, hdc in next ch, dc in next ch, htr (see below) in next 3 ch, dc in next ch, hdc in next ch, sc in last ch. Ch 2, sl st in 2nd ch from hook. Working along the other side of the chain, sc in next ch, hdc in next ch, dc in next ch, htr in next 3 ch, dc in next ch, hdc in next ch, sc in last ch. Fasten off leaving a long tail to sew the leaf to the hat.

Htr (half treble crochet): Yarn over 2 times, insert hook in stitch and draw up a loop (4 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through 2 loops (3 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through 3 loops (1 loop left on hook).

Here in the United States we will be celebrating our nation’s birthday this week on the 4th of July. After seeing lots of beautiful patriotic crocheted items online, I was inspired to make some patriotic hats with my free Versatile Earflap Hat Pattern. The kids only wore the hats for a few minutes, of course, as it was way too hot, but I loved the way they turned out and I hope you will love them too!

To make these hats, follow the instructions in the free pattern available for download here, changing colors as noted below. Finish off your hats with pom poms, braids or tassels on the earflaps. I found the cute buttons pictured at Hobby Lobby but you could also make some small star appliques out of felt and sew them to your hat.

Stripes and Stars Hat

0-3 Months

• Beginning with red, alternate working rounds 1 through 9 in red and white
• Work rounds 10 and 11 in blue, work earflaps and edgings in blue too

3-6 Months

• Beginning with white, alternate working rounds 1 through 10 in white and red
• Work rounds 11 and 12 in blue, work earflaps and edgings in blue too

6-12 Months

• Beginning with red, alternate working rounds 1 through 11 in red and white
• Work rounds 12 and 13 in blue, work earflaps and edgings in blue too

Toddler

• Beginning with white, alternate working rounds 1 through 12 in white and red
• Work rounds 13 through 15 in blue, work earflaps and edgings in blue too

Child

• Beginning with red, alternate working rounds 1 through 15 in red and white
• Work rounds 16 through 18 in blue, work earflaps and edgings in blue too

Teen/Adult

• Beginning with red, alternate working rounds 1 through 17 in red and white
• Work rounds 18 through 20 in blue, work earflaps and edgings in blue too

Star and Stripes Hat

0-3 Months

• Round 1 in red
• Rounds 2 & 3 in white
• Rounds 4 & 5 in red
• Rounds 6 & 7 in white
• Rounds 8 & 9 in red
• Rounds 10 & 11 in white
• Work earflaps and both edgings in red

3-6 Months

• Rounds 1 & 2 in red
• Rounds 3 & 4 in white
• Rounds 5 & 6 in red
• Rounds 7 & 8 in white
• Rounds 9 & 10 in red
• Rounds 11 & 12 in white
• Work earflaps and both edgings in red

6-12 Months

• Rounds 1 through 3 in red
• Rounds 4 & 5 in white
• Rounds 6 & 7 in red
• Rounds 8 & 9 in white
• Rounds 10 & 11 in red
• Rounds 12 & 13 in white
• Work earflaps and both edgings in red

Toddler

• Rounds 1 through 3 in white
• Rounds 4 & 5 in red
• Rounds 6 & 7 in white
• Rounds 8 & 9 in red
• Rounds 10 & 11 in white
• Rounds 12 & 13 in red
• Rounds 14 & 15 in white
• Work earflaps and both edgings in red

Child

• Rounds 1 through 3 in red
• Rounds 4 through 6 in white
• Rounds 7 through 9 in red
• Rounds 10 through 12 in white
• Rounds 13 through 15 in red
• Rounds 16 through 18 in white
• Work earflaps and both edgings in red

Teen/Adult

• Rounds 1 & 2 in white
• Rounds 3 through 5 in red
• Rounds 6 through 8 in white
• Rounds 9 through 11 in red
• Rounds 12 through 14 in white
• Rounds 15 through 17 in red
• Rounds 18 through 20 in white
• Work earflaps and both edgings in red

Large Star Applique

• Round 1: 5 Sc in a magic circle; do not join.
• Round 2: 2 Sc in each st around; do not join.
• Round 3: * Sc in next st, 2 sc in next st * repeat around; do not join.
• Round 4: * Sc in next st, ch 6, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next ch, hdc in next ch, dc in next ch, tr in next ch, tr in the same st as sc, sk 2 sts * repeat 4 more times; sl st in first sc to join and fasten off, leaving a long tail for sewing the star to your hat.

Have a happy 4th of July and a great week!