May 22, 20236 min read

Cute granny square headband

Updated: Jun 5, 2023

Right in time as summer is starting, I will show you how to create this breezy granny square headband. It’s the perfect accessory to cover your head from the sun and, as the headband is made from cotton, it’s lightweight and breathable.

Tools required

To get started, you’ll need just a few materials (and some optional additional tools).

For the yarn, you’ll need a sport weight cotton in several colours of your choice. I used Hobbii Friends Cotton 8/4, which comes in at 160m per 50g skein, in white and five additional colours. If you want to recreate the exact colours I used, you’ll need a skein of each

01 White
63 Lilac
70 Purple Rain
76 Icy Blue
85 Sapphire
105 Emerald

If you want to use your own colours of choice, your options are endless as Friends Cotton comes in a total of 124 unique colours. Just choose one primary and five (or more) accessory colours.

Additionally, you’ll need a 3.5mm crochet hook, a pair of scissors and a tapestry needle.

In addition, I always recommend blocking your work – for that you’ll also need blocking mats and a garment steamer or steam iron.

Lastly, and this one is completely optional, you can use a sewing machine and white sewing thread (or whichever is your primary colour) to join the granny square. However, this is just my “lazy” method of choice, you can also join them using just your yarn and crochet hook.

Making the squares

Once you’ve gathered all the supplies you need, you can start making the first granny square! Start out by creating a magic ring using your primary colour. You can also check out my tutorial on the simplest way to create a magic loop.

To start the first round, insert your crochet hook into the magic ring, yarn over, and pull through the magic ring to create a loop and then chain three (counts as your first stitch).

Continue by making three treble crochets into the magic ring. To close the round, slip stitch into the top of the first stitch. Then cut the yarn, leaving a few centimetres of tail, and pull the tail through the loop.

Tip: When making granny squares, I always weave in the ends as I go. In order to do that, I make the first stitch into the stitch/space right before the one where I cut the previous tail. When continuing the round, I hold both tails along the stitches that I crochet into for as few stitches. This way, I can just cut the remaining tails (except the first and last one) once I’m done, without having to weave them in with a tapestry needle.

To begin round two, take your next colour of yarn, insert your hook into the first space between two treble crochets, pull the yarn through and chain one. Now make one bobble stitch (find the tutorial for this stitch here) into that same space and each following space, leaving you with a total of 16 bobbles. Once again, slip stitch into the top of the first stitch to close the round, chain one and then cut the yarn and pull the tail through the loop.

For the next round, join the new colour of yarn as previously done. Then make one berry stitch into the first space between two bobbles. If you've never done anything in berry stitch, you can click here to learn how to do it. Afterwards, chain two and make another berry stitch into the second space; continue this for the rest of the round, finishing again with a slip stitch to close the round and cutting the tail, securing it with a chain one once more.

In round four, we will double the number of stitches. Start by joining the next colour and then make one bobble stitch (same stitch as in round two), this time going into each chain two space and also into the top of each berry stitch, amounting to a total of 32 stitches at the end of the round. Close the round as done in previous rounds.

Now we are moving on to the last round, which is done again in the primary colour used in the first round. To start, join the new colour by pulling the yarn through the first space between two berry stitches. This time chain three which counts as your first stitch; then make one treble crochet into the same space. Now make two double crochets into the next space. Then one half-double crochet into the space after, and two single crochets into the next space. For the next four spaces, repeat this pattern in reverse order (SC, HDC, DC, TC). In order to create the first corner, chain two after the second treble crochet, then make two trebles into the next space. Repeat these steps three more times, this will turn your circle into a square shape. In the last space, you should end up with another two treble crochets – after that, chain two and slip stitch to connect to the first stitch to close.

Now chain one to secure, cut the yarn and pull the tail through. If you followed the technique to weave in as you go, you will now have to weave in only the last tail and the first one. Before weaving in the first tail in the centre of the square, make sure to pull on it to tighten the magic loop and weave it in securely so that the centre hole will not open up by itself.

And that’s the first square already done!

Making the triangles

To make the rest of the headband, create two more squares and three triangles. In order to make a half granny square (creating the triangle shape), you will start again with a magic ring, but this time only with the chain three plus eight more treble crochets. Then continue the same way as with the squares, using only half the number of stitches before switching to the next row. Only for round three and four, you will have nine/seventeen stitches respectively, so one more than half the number of stitches of the square.

Connecting the pieces

One all squares and triangles are finished, and the ends woven in, I recommend blocking the pieces before joining them.

In order to join the parts together, you can use a sewing machine. Simply line them up next to each other and sew over them using the zig-zag stitch. This is in my opinion the fastest way to do it. However, don’t worry if you don’t have a sewing machine – you can also join the squares using your crochet hook and yarn. Line up two edges next to each other and then slip stitch into the top of both stitches in order to join them.

Finishing the headband

Now it’s time to add the borders to the headband.

For the longer edge, you’ll need to do a row of single crochets, followed by a row of double crochet and then one more round of single crochet.

For the shorter edge, I made one bobble stitch into each space between the stitches. Afterwards, I went back along the row making one single crochet into each space between the bobbles as well as into the top of each bobble stitch.

And now you are already done with the main part of the headband!

All you will need to do now is to make two I-cords in whichever method you prefer, both around 30 centimetres long. My favourite way to make them is using a crochet hook – here I chose to do this using two different colours.

First create a slip knot on your hook, then wrap the second colour of yarn counter-clockwise around the hook. Now yarn over and pull the yarn through both loops on your hook. Repeat these steps of wrapping the yarn and then pulling through both loops until your cord has reached the desired length. To secure in the end, cut the yarn and pull both ends through the loop – I additionally secured it with a knot.

Afterwards, attach the cords to the corners of the headband with another knot. To be on the safe side, I also weaved in all the ends from the cord so that the knots won’t open.