Tunisian crochet with double ended hook: Hat instructions.

 I've recently become intrigued by tunisian crochet with a double ended hook. So far I've got the hang of two techniques.
1) basic simple stitch

and 2) in the round

 I felt that I could put these together to make a hat design:

The real beauty of these stitches is that they are double sided, thus resulting in a reversible hat.

I wanted to share my instructions on how to do this, but didn't want to write out detailed instructions so bear with me! This can be used with any thickness of yarn (provided you have the right hook) for any size of head.

To start, chain the number of stitches which give you the depth of brim that you require. (I suggest about 10)

Use the basic stitch, until the brim is the length you require (these were baby hats and about 14inch long). Join to form a circle, using whatever method of joining your prefer. Play around with crochet methods until you find one that you are happy with.

Now start the main body, using the crochet in the round method picking up stitches as though the edge of the band was a row of chain.

Continue working in the round. At some point count how many stitches you have.

You now need to do a little calculation to work out the decreases. Divide the number of stitches by six. If it goes exactly then great if not then average it out.

For example one of my hats had 56 stitches which I averaged out as 2 lots of 10 and 4 lots of 9 (I hope that makes sense)

From this you can also approximate the number of decrease rows you will have, it will be one less than the lower number, in this case 8.

So continue in the round until it is the length you require allowing for the number of decrease rows.

To decrease: On the pick up part ("forward pass") of the stitch put your hook through two vertical bars instead of one and pull the yarn up through both.

for the first decrease row. decrease one stitch, then pick up (the number of loops calculated above minus 2), continue to end of round.

for example with my 56 stitches.
pick up two together, pick up 8, pick up two together, pick up 7, pick up two together pick up 7, pick up two together pick up 8, pick up two together pick up 7, pick up two together pick up 7.

for the following rounds, you don't need to count, just do a decrease everywhere it appears on the row before.

continue until you are left with a buttonhole sized hole and finish off.

sew in all ends invisibly.

finish with a pom-pom but make it detachable by attaching it to a button.