I should’ve called this the ONE STITCH CHALLENGE HAT, fellow kids, but I am not going to.

The challenge: a decent hat in one stitch. The result: a simple sack hat!

Fine yarn and doubled fabric make up for lack of shaping and stockinette’s potential curl. If you omit the buttons (fatal flaw: I put buttons on everything. I don’t even like sewing buttons), you can make a minimalist hat; if you don’t mind the embellishment, you can add buttons to make this a convertible cowl/hat monstrosity. (It’s a pretty nice monstrosity.)

This project is portable and extremely scrap-friendly—knit it in unique stripes! I like it in lightweight yarn, but this could easily be knit in other yarnweights with minimal math at setup.

In some ways, the finishing makes this an intermediate project; in other ways, you’re on the internet, friend, and if you’ve got the moxie to knit a whole stockinette tube in the round for 18-20”, I think you can find a tutorial and use the fancy finishing techniques by the time you get to them. And then you’ll have those in your toolbox for furture projects.

ANOTHER THING ON GAUGE:
This is definitely an any-gauge project. I’ve added all details for the sample, basically, so that you’ll have them and I can know the written pattern isn’t lazily made just because the project’s easy, but this .PDF includes a quick guide to knitting your sack hat in any yarn you like, up to worsted/aran. Unfortunately, I really like the fine-gauge version, so any future projects I work up will probably be that.

If you work this in a heavier yarn, I’d love to see your work, and I’ll probably be haunting any project pages in hopes of seeing cool variations.

Gauge:
Gauge is 28 sts and 38 rows in 4”/10cm in blocked stockinette, in fingering-weight yarn, as shown in the sample. Please be sure to check your gauge.

(You’ll note that the notes on knitting this at any gauge mention a different lightweight gauge as well as the one I actually used; this makes the math easier if you’re customizing the size.)

Materials:

• 1 skein or 100g Cascade Heritage Wave, shown in 502/Solar, similar yarn, or 100g sockweight scraps
• 1 16” circular needle in US3/3.25mm, or size needed for gauge.
• 1 spare dpn, if preferred for 3-needle bindoff
• Tapestry needle
• Smooth scrap yarn for provisional cast-on
• Crochet hook in size suited to yarn
• Optional (but necessary for project shown): six ⅝“ buttons