For the most part, I have been good about buying yarn. It is often tempting to just go into a store where the walls are filled floor to ceiling with yarn and buy one of every color you love. This, however, does not often go over well with the budget, so I have tried to only buy yarn once I have a project in mind. So, after a few projects, I began to accumulate yarn scraps. Some of these “yarn scraps” were really almost entire balls of yarn for projects that only needed a small bit.

So, I found myself trying to find a project for all the leftover red yarn from the R2D2 hat. My sister and I grew up loving Pokemon, so I decided to make her a Poké Ball hat, hoping her head was the same size as mine. Good news, it is.

I was able to make this hat entirely with leftover yarn from the R2D2 and BB-8 hats.

If you aren’t already familiar with Ravelry, it’s a great resource for finding and sharing patterns. I found the pattern for the Poké Ball hat on Bonnie Jacobs’ Ravelry Page. I completed the hat with a 5.0mm (US H) hook, and followed her pattern other than starting with a magic circle for both the hat and the front button. Magic circles can be intimidating at first, but with a little practice, you can make projects with crocheting in the round look much cleaner at the start. For this hat, I used a magic circle with ch 3 and 11 dc. At the end of the hat, to add a little length, I added a round of sc followed by a round of sl st. One of my favorite things I have learned as I continue to crochet if how to customize projects and patterns to be exactly what you want. It’s one of the greatest benefits of making things for yourself and your loved ones.