Mexican Hat flowers, real and crocheted

The roadsides around our house are abloom with Mexican Hats, aka Hat Flowers, so it seems a good time to do a Mexican Hat Step by Step.

The pattern is on pages 24-26 of Crochet Garden. You choose whether to make one or two rounds of petals. For this tutorial, I made the double flower. The photos are to supplement the crochet instructions in the book.

Crocheted Mexican Hat Step-by-Step

Both flowers start with the tall center, a tube of single crochet worked round and round through Rnd 7. Be sure that you’re inserting your hook from the outside of the tube.

In Rnd 8, you make ch-3 loops around and then stuff the tube. Now it looks like Photo 1.

Crocheted Mexican Hat Step-by-Step

You close off the tube with Rnd 9, cut threads, and weave them in.

Rnd 10 starts the first round of petals in the ch-3 loops you made in Rnd 8. In Photo 2, you can see burgundy centers of four petals created in Rnd 10, along with the first part of Rnd 11 (yellow thread).

To give the petals their characteristic shape, their edges are pinched together with stitches. Rnd 12 pinches each petal and it creates ch-3 lps as the foundation for the next round of petals. You are still working in the same direction, but you have to look on the underside of the flower to insert the hook.

Crocheted Mexican Hat Step-by-Step

Photo 3 shows a completed Rnd 12 from the underside of the flower. Each petal has a sl st at one side of its base, a ch 1, then another sl st on the other side of its base. This is what pinches the petal into shape. Between the petals you’ll see the ch-3 lp that forms the base for the next round of petals.

Since I was going to use the burgundy and yellow threads again for the second round of petals, I fastened them off but I didn’t cut them.

Crocheted Mexican Hat Step-by-Step

In Photo 4 you can see the first petal of Rnd 13 peeking from between two petals. When Rnd 13 is done, the underside looks like Photo 5.

Crocheted Mexican Hat Step-by-Step

Rnd 14 completes the petals.

Crocheted Mexican Hat Step-by-Step

In the sepal round (Rnd 12 of the single flower, Rnd 15 of the double flower), you are once again pinching the petals together and at the same time, you’re creating the green sepals, as in Photo 6. The sepals are little green spikes that curl out from between the petals.

I’m hoping my daughter will make some tutorial videos for me this summer. The Mexican Hat seems like a good candidate for a how-to video. What do you think?