Easy-peasy halo top hat, being a recipe for women’s hats that has NO SHAPING in the fancy-knit part. All the shaping comes at the top of the cylinder.

Addendum 1-31-23
Other easy-peasy halo top hats:
Squares hat
Halo top hat like a flowerpot hat

This hat features two distinct tricks: The easy-peasy band fitting (no counting) and the halo top. Either trick can be used independently, and you can adapt existing hat patterns to either trick. In the text that follows, both tricks are used together--a easy-peasy hat with a halo top.
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With any yarn, at any gauge, this bottom-up halo-top hat is going to fit with no counting and no trouble about decreasing away the top. The only (supposedly) advanced skills are using dpn’s and Kitchener stitching the top shut. The only counting necessary is to accomodate any fancy stitch pattern you might like to use. For the most basic verison, there is no reason to count anything at all.

Easy-peasy hat begins with a hat band worked lengthwise, then folded lengthwise. You then pick up the body of the hat through band-edges, picking up one stitch per row of the hat band, using a crochet hook, and drawing through the loops from new yarn--in other words, you pick up THROUGH the band--you do not pick up the band stitches themselves. The stitches picked up are drawn through BOTH top edges, which fastens the band-edges together.

One st picked up per row is a proportion which automatically makes a roomy-enough hat (row gauge always having more stitches/inch)

The top is decreased away using a brand-new trick I call “halo top” . This trick is related to the “truly flat hat top” I introduced in 2008, but is even easier: there is no decreasing in pattern whatsoever, regardless of how fancy the stitch pattern. This means that you can now make hats with ANY stitch pattern from any stitch-pattern book, without having to worry about incorporating the pattern into the decreases. ANY color pattern works too and there is no trouble about decreasing in the color pattern, either. This is because the halo-top is a separate part of the hat altogether.

I personally think a halo-top looks best with a pom-pom, but that is a matter of taste. I have pictured it with and without (the first picture i shows the hat without the pom-pom). I’ve also shown the hat with two different pom-poms.

HAT BAND--worked lengthwise.

Provisionally cast on 25 stitches, or any other odd number which is pleasing to you. As is obvious, more stitches make a wider band, fewer make a narrower band. Work the band until it fits comfortably around your head. Join the end to the beginning via three-needle bind off. Do NOT cut the yarn. Fold band in half with whichever side out you prefer. Try it on again to be sure you like it. If it is too loose or too tight, take out the three needle bind off and subtract or add a few rows. Wear the band around for a few minutes to be sure it isn’t pinching your ears to your head. When satisfied, go to the next step.

Options for knitting the band
A: work in stockinette with the middle stitch as a reverse stockinette (purl) column. Once the band is folded in half with the smooth stockinette fabric to the outside, this (hidden) purl column makes a delightful thickening of the band-edge at the forehead.

B: Work the band in a pattern (such as cables) on one half, and work the other half so that, once folded in half LENGTHWISE, the inside of the band is a reverse stockinette fabric. Or regular stockinette. Remember that cables tighten the fabric width-wise, so add a few stitches to the half with the cables. Just to repeat myself: with this option, when I say “half,” I mean half LENGTHWISE.

C: Work the hat band in ribbing.

What not to do: Do not use garter stitch: Garter stitch’s row/stitch gauge is not correct for this recipe.

PICK UP FOR THE BODY OF THE HAT:

Start at the back seam, using the yarn located there from your three-needle bind off. Using a crochet hook, and holding the hat band folded wrong-sides together, draw a loop though both layers of fabric, either 1 stitch or 1/2 stitch in from the edge (experiment and see which you like better). Place the loop over the barrel of a 16” circular needle. Continue in this manner all around the hat. In the green sample zig-zag hat, I worked 136 rows and picked up 136 stitches.

WORK THE BODY OF THE HAT:

Once your stitches are on your needles, simply work the hat as high as you like, using any color- or texture-pattern you prefer. The green hat was worked in a traveling zig-zag pattern. It required 135 stitches to get the required repeat, so I k2tog’ed in the first row to get rid of the extra stitch. Once the hat is as high as you like, you are done with any texture- or color-pattern you might be working.

WORK THE HALO-TOP

Work the very last row of your hat in 1/1 rib (k1, p1). If you have an odd number of sts, simply decrease away a stitch somewhere at random.

Now comes some fun: you have to separate the K stitches from the P stitches. The K stitches become the “halo” and the purl sts becomes the actual hat top. There is no sense using a stitch holder or dpns: the best thing to do is to use a piece of waste yarn and a BLUNT sewing needle. So, work your way around the hat top, lifting off the P stitches onto the waste yarn, and replacing the K stitches (which will beocme the halo) onto the needles. You MIGHT have to switch to dpns to work the halo, but try with the circs, first.

Knit the halo:

Once all the P sts are safely on their holder, simply knit a few rounds of stocking stitch on the K stitches (I like to work 5), then bind off. Due to stocking stitch’s structure, it insists on rolling over, and ta-da! A halo results! As you see, you’ve reduced the hat top by 50% with this little maneuver. This means that the actual flat part of the hat top isn’t worked on very many stitches: a good thing as we will soon see.

Warning!

Because the P stitches are on a waste yarn, all the slack from those stitches gets pulled into the base of the K stitches on which you are knitting the halo. Consequently, the halo looks dreadful at this point--all loose and sloppy at its base. Worry not! As soon as you start working the hat top on the P stitches, these giant loops even out again.

Work the hat top:

You might have to work this part of the hat several times until you’re satisfied, and this is because the number of rounds to work between the decrease rounds varies depending on your row gauge. With a worsted-weight yarn, I work 3-4 rounds beteen the decrease rounds. In a finer yarn, more rounds are required; in a heavier yarn, fewer. This part of the hat goes PDQ (pretty darn quick!) however, so it’s not so painful to redo. Note that you can choose to leave the waste yarn in place to act as a life-line in the event you do have to re-work the top, removing it only at the end

Turn the hat inside out, then pick up the purl stitches onto a set of dpn’s, leaving the waste yarn in place if you like.

Work 3 rounds plain.
--Decrease round: , * K2 tog, k1, repeating from * all the way around.
Work 4 more rows, then a decrease round. Again work 4 more rounds, then a decrease round. Repeat as required (more repeats for thinner yarn with more stitches). When you have got to somewhere around 20 stitches total place the stitches on two needles, then Kitchener stitch (graft) the hat top together. I usually orient this graft so that the back seam (where the three-needle bind-off of the hat-band is located) bisects the graft (so the graft is square to the seam). Alternatively, you could line the graft up with the back seam. Do choose one of these options, however: either square to the seam or lined up with the seam. Any other orientation will make the hat sit funny when the back seam is at the back.

FINISHING:

Work in the ends. Block the hat. Put on the pom-pom (if any) after blocking. If you’d like to put on a pom-pom, consider leaving two long tails on your pom-pom and tying the pom-pom to the top of the hat, making a bow inside the hat with the two ends. When it comes time to wash the hat, untie the pom-pom, wash the hat, then reattach the pom-pom to the dry hat. I’ve shown this hat with two different pom poms, they’re actually simply safety-pinned to the inside of the hat.

Some notes:

You can work a halo-top on any kind of hat, really. In other words, you can adapt the halo-top to any pattern for hats you like. you need not start with a hat-band at all. However, make a halo-top hat higher than a normal hat. This is because the decreasing happens all at once, rather than gradually. This is especially important if you are adapting an existing pattern.

If you are making a color-work hat, you can make the band in color work in the round, flatten it down, then pick up the stitches for the hat right through a plain-color column. Consider making the halo in one of the cc colors. Consider also working the hat
top in stripes, and/or cram some tiny patterns into the rounds between the decreases.

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Personal notes; the green hat was worked in Estelle worsted 40% wool, 50% acrylic, 10% nylon. Its an odd combo, I want to see how it wears…Used a size Aero 16” #5 circ needle. Stitch gauge over pattern after blocking=29/30 sts per 5 inches. The pattern is a multiple of 8+7--in other words, a multiple of 8 with one stitch missing. Going around on one fewer stitches creates the zig zags. When your first zig is as high and you want it (I think I used 8 rows) simply wrap a stitch at the end of the pattern, then turn the work (and turn the hat inside out) and work the identical pattern…repeat for several complete zig-zag patterns. stop half way through a zig or a zag--in other words, when the furtherest-out purl st cuts off all the continuous st st (knit) stitches. Stopping at any other point leaves you what looks like 4/4 ribbing at the hat top. After stopping partway thru a zig or a zag, work the halo-top as described.