For a Tiki themed Halloween this year, I was inspired to make a last minute crochet hat of Moana’s pig companion Pua. Literally last minute, I finished tying off all the sewn in ends to this hat on the car drive over. Which is a terrible idea because chenille yarn snaps so easily.

Project notes

Because I was on such a time crunch starting this the day before halloween, I used the largest 8.00mm hook for everything. Which was time efficient, but not as cute in my opinion.

Yarns used:

White: Big Twist Baby Bear

Gray: Omoiut yarn. I bought way too much of this off amazon. Such a random off brand yarn but it’s been the best out of all my current off brand yarns

Pink: Loops & Threads Sweet Snuggles Lite

I followed this hat base from this google tutorial. https://vivcrochets.com/bucket-hat/ I’m currently obsessed with this downward slanting bucket hat shape after visiting Japan over the summer.

With my ginormous 8.00 mm hook, it was only 5 rows for the circle base (and I could have gone with 4 rows here because my hat was way too big) I crochet the base to 7 inches in diameter. The middle portion was 3.75 inch tall. The hat brim was just over 2 inches.

Base:

Row 1: Magic circle, 10 DC, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (10)

Row 2: 10 dcinc, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (20)

Row 3: (dc, dcinc) x 10, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (30)

Row 4: (2 dc, dcinc) x10, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (40)

I should have stopped here but was paranoid it would be too small for my big head and added an extra increase row.

Row 5: (3 dc, dcinc) x10, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (50)

Middle:

Row 6 DC in Front Loops (FLO): 50 dc, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (50)

Row 7-9 DC in each stitch as usual.

Row 10: in FLO (4 dc, dcinc) x10, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (60)

Row 11: DC in each stitch of row as usual: 60 dc (60)

Row 12: (5 dc, dcinc) x10, sl st to join to first dc, turn, chain 2 (70)

Fend off any attacking cats

Next work create 2 white triangles and 2 pink triangles for the ears and crochet them together with white yarn.

More cat photos for tax.

Create some misc grey blobs for the patches. I honestly can’t recommend what I did. I used a bunch of short base chains of 3-5, and using combo of slip stitch, shell stitches (1hdc 1dc) (1dc 3 tr 1dc in a stitch) (1hdc 1dc) , and also crocheting all the around the bottom of the base chain and continuing into rounds for an even border to shape the blobs.

I made the large teardrop eye patch piece, the eyebrow piece, and a blotch for each ear. the eyebrow piece is a 12 ch or desired length, second row starts with a sc, scinc for the curve, sc, then ends with some sl st to.

Then I very very terribly sewed everything on real quick just before leaving the house.

The hat kept slipping off while we were walking around at a halloween even in the afternoon, so I added on little chin strap ties like a baby bonnet for the evening.

Enjoy!

For further modifications As little added ons, I would have added the white yarn embroidery around the safety eyes. I’ve seen a few videos of people embroidering 2-3 layers of white yarn along half the edge of a safety eye for a very cute eyeball effect.

I also think a cute little faux mohawk here would have been cuter. And in hindsight I think the ear flap style crochet hat is so popular because they sit so much better on your head even when they are too big.