Sun Hat Makeover

I have had this pretty good straw hat for a while now. It is my go to hat for activities in the sun. I got it for free, it has a good shape, a nice interior comfort band and fits well. The only down side to it is that since it was free, the band on the outside was printed with the name of the company it came from.

Personally I didn't feel like advertising for them every time I go on a walk, so I took a sharpie to the black band and tried to scribble over the white company name. That worked, but only so far. You could clearly still read the name since that area was now a bit shiny and lighter still. So looking to my current crochet project for inspiration, I took a few hours and made a new band to sit over the existing black band for the hat.

My current project, which has been and will be ongoing for a while (read many many months), is to use this giant spool of coarse twine to make granny squares, to eventually assemble into a rug for my outdoor patio. Since this twine is so sturdy I figured it might do well outside and therefore might work well on the outside of my sun hat.

I made 16 mini granny squares... I guess technically they might not be granny squares, since really they are just the first row of a classic one.

Square: 
Chain 4, slip stitch in first chain to create a loop.
Chain 3, counts as first double crochet, 2 more double crochet in the loop.
Chain 3 to create a corner space, 3 double crochet in loop. Repeat this 3 times.
The final chain 3 should then be attached to the third chain of the starting chain with a slip stitch.
Bind off.
You end up with this:

Shown with my thumb for size. I wanted it to about the same width as the existing band.

Once I had 16 of them, I attached my twine to the corner space of one of the squares with a slip stitch. I then did one single crochet in the loop where I attached it, one single crochet in each of the top of the three double crochets, then one more single crochet in the the next chain 3 corner space. To join it to the next square, I held both in my hand and did a joining single crochet in the two corner spaces next to each other:

To Join: Insert the hook into the first corner space, pull up a loop, then insert the hook into the corner of the new square to be joined and pull up a loop, yarn over the hook and pull through all three loops.

Basically doing a single crochet decrease between both corners. I then continued my pattern of one more single crochet in the corner space, one single crochet in each of the 3 double crochet, one single crochet in the next chain space corner, then the joining single crochet. On and on until I had them all attached by one side. I then attached the end of my long side to the starting corner with my same joining single crochet. I bound that side off and then proceeded to the same thing along the bottom side of my long circle hat band. Once that was done, I cut off all the tails from each square to clean it up a bit. Attaching them along the top and bottom saved me from having to sew them all together.

Squares got a little bigger with the rows of single crochet along the top and bottom.

I wanted to add on ties for under my chin. Since the hat has a large brim, sometimes it gets blown off and this way if I don't need it, I can just let it rest on my back or attach it to my pack on hikes.
Folding the band in half, I had two sides of 8, meaning that in the center of each side was easy to see in the center of 4.

For the ties, I chained 80, slip stitched to the joining single crochet between the middle of the two center squares and then slip stitched back down the chain of 80. I did this for both sides. One side I added a loop at the bottom and the other got a large knot and tassel, so I can simply join them together like a button. I pulled these through the hat which required making a small hole in the straw.

Better!

Done! Now, I have a cute hat band, that shows off my skills, should last and not look bad if the sun fades it or anything. Total project time was about 2 hours.