Messy Bun Hat

Messy Bun Hat

STACEY'S MESSY BUN HAT... THE HAT THAT NEARLY BROKE THE INTERNET!

Here's a cute hat with a story.  I am piecing things together here but it seems as if a gal named Stacey posted on Facebook, in some sort of small group where you can buy/sell/trade items, a picture of a cute hat and she said she was making and selling the hats for about $15.00.  Some how the photo of the girl with a messy bun sticking out the top of her crochet hat went absolutely viral... I mean VIRAL as in "nearly broke the Internet" viral.  Some where in that time, a mom I know sent me a photo (the photo of the girl in the hat above) and asked me, "Hey, can you make one of these for my teenage daughter?"

I did a little research.  I found that Stacey herself had typed up her pattern but she asked folks to be patient with her, as she had never typed up a pattern before.  As I looked further, I found all sorts of other folks using Stacey's photo of her viral sensation hat and these folks were trying to sell their patterns using Stacey's photo.  Crummy, really crummy.  I wasn't wanting to buy Stacey's pattern if it really hadn't been tried and tested.  And I wasn't wanting to buy a pattern from someone stealing her photo and trying to pass of Stacey's design as their own.  Also, all of this was going on during my Etsy shop holiday rush, so I put this all on the back burner for a little while.

But I kept thinking about he cute hat with the messy bun sticking out the top.  I closed my Etsy shop (vacation mode!) the other day to take a little holiday stress off of myself.  I looked on Ravelry and, sure enough, there are lots of "Messy Bun Hat" patterns now available on Ravelry.  I happened to find this pattern (LINK HERE) called "It's All About the Messy Bun" by June Nemeth.  I appreciated the fact that she was up front about fact that she saw the viral sensation hat on the Internet and made up her pattern to make a hat for her daughter.  At that time apparently, Stacey had not yet typed up her pattern.  June is offering her pattern for FREE and is not trying to pass off Stacey's work as her own. I printed off the pattern and remembered this great yarn in my stash.  The yarn worked out great for this pattern. I hope the recipient love the hat.  I delivered the hat to her mom today.

The yarn is crocheted with a Size H crochet hook and you start the hat at the top, where there is a big opening for a gal to make a messy ponytail or bun at the top of her head.  The yarn I used is by Plymouth Yarns and is called "Stained Glazz".  The crown of the hat is crocheted in rounds, all in double crochet.  You can see the top of the hat below.

The ribbing of the hat was crocheted perpendicular to the body of the hat in single crochet in rows. The ribbing portion was definitely the labor intensive portion of the hat.  You can see the ribbing in progress in the photo below.  The only part of the hat that I stumbled on was the very last instruction. When the ribbing was done, the pattern directs you do slip stitch the beginning of the ribbing to the end of the ribbing.  I found that a little tricky and I am not quite sure I did that very last step correctly. 

Of course when I posted a photo of my completed Messy Bun Hat on Facebook last night, a few moms I know asked, "Oh, are you making and selling these?"

No, I am not.  One Messy Bun Hat was enough for this gal.  But if you'd like to crochet one, I highly recommend this pattern. 

Now, on to the next project...