The last step when knitting a hat is to close the top of the hat with a needle and weave in your ends. Here’s how to do it step by step.
Video Tutorial: Finish off a knit hat
Watch this short 5 minute video to see how to close the top of a knit hat and weave in the ends to finish it off.
This demo shows a hat knit in the round, but you do the same thing for a hat knit on straight needles. The only difference is that my stitches are on a circular needle tip in the video.
There’s also step by step written instructions below if you prefer:
Step 1: Cut the Yarn
At the end of your hat pattern, you’ll have a few stitches left on your needle. Leaving a long tail, cut the yarn and thread it through a tapestry needle.
We’ll thread the tail through all the remaining stitches stitches to gather the top of the hat.
Step 2: Prepare the Stitches (if needed)
If you’re knitting your hat on straight needles (back and forth in rows), you’re ready to start step 3.
If you’ve knit your hat in the round and your stitches are on a circular rather than double pointed needles, I find it helps to split the stitches first, moving roughly half to each tip, with the yarn tail hanging from the back tip.
Hold both tips together in your left hand and gently pull the yarn tail to tighten up.
Step 3: Thread Yarn through All Stitches
You can thread your needle through a stitch at a time or a bunch together.
To work a stitch at a time, put your tapestry needle into each stitch on the needle from right to left, moving it on to the tapestry needle. Once the needle is empty, gently pull the tapestry needle through all the stitches.
Alternatively, you can thread your tapestry needle through some or all of the stitches at once while they’re on your knitting needle, and then take your knitting needle out afterwards.
If you’ve split your stitches on 2 circular needle tips, you thread through the front tip stitches first. Then turn your knitting, and starting from the back (cable end) of the circular tip, thread through the rest of the stitches.
Once you have brought the yarn through all your stitches, gently pull the yarn end. But leave the opening (if knitting in the round) or the top edge (hat on straight needles) loose so you can still clearly see each stitch loop.
Step 4: Thread Yarn through Again
Go through all the stitches a 2nd time to make the top of the hat really secure and leave no hole.
So working around from left to right, put your needle through every stitch again. You can still make out each stitch because you left the opening loose.
Once you get to the end, pull tightly and voilà – the top of your hat is done.
Step 5: Weave in Top Yarn End
Finally you need to weave in the yarn ends. There’s lots of ways to do this, but here’s how I do it.
First bring your yarn tail through to work on the inside of the hat. Next, bring the needle through a couple of nearby purl bumps.
After that, just go through and around stitches in different directions.
A row of purl stitches looks like it’s made up of little u and n letters (or smiles and frowns if you prefer 😊). So mix between going under these shapes and following the u or n stitch around with my needle.
Don’t go through a load of stitches in a row, because I find it adds thickness or looks obvious. Just pick a couple of stitches here and there at random, working both upwards and downwards.
Once you’ve done several of these and worked a bit away from the centre of the hat, that’s plenty. Carefully cut the yarn right at the hat and you’re done.
Step 6: Weave in Bottom Yarn End
To weave in the cast on yarn tail in the rib at the bottom of the hat, I prefer to work on the right side. With a long tail cast on there’s a nice edge along the bottom.
So first I bring the needle through the loop at the very bottom to the left. This joins things up nicely so you can barely tell where the start of the round is.
Then I bring the needle through a knit stitch column so I’m in a purl column. Knit stitches look much more obvious in rib, so it’s easier to hide your weaving in the purl columns.
There’s no right or wrong here. The main thing is to cover a bit of ground working through several stitches in different directions.
Similar to the top of the hat, mix between going up and down through the u and n shapes or following them around.
After doing a few stitches in the same column, move on through the next knit column. I usually follow a knit stitch around by looping up, behind and around in an n shape. Then I work into a few more stitches in the next purl column.
Then I pass the needle under another knit stitch, but this time loop back by going under the stitch above. So you end up working backwards towards the starting point, just a little higher up. Go through a few more stitches in random directions and that’s it.
Carefully cut the yarn close to the hat, and your knit hat is finally finished. Hooray!
I hope this tutorial helps you get a nice finish to your knitted hat so you can wear it with pride. Got any questions? Just comment below.