The Five Hour Two Hour Project

When reviewing my incomplete goals just before the new year, I found I'd been overlooking one that was perfectly seasonal to be getting on with:

052. Crochet a hat

Seriously, what better time to start than the middle of winter, when it is cold and damp and frankly, the exact sort of weather for piling on the layers?

Since I didn't have any yarn, or any clue how to start, I ended up going onto Amazon and searching 'crochet hat kit'.
Which led to my finding this:

The Wild Wild Wool crochet hat kit from Rico Design seemed like a good option, especially as it ended up costing me just under £5 from a marketplace seller!

By the way, this is not a sponsored post. I found this product of my own accord, paid for it with my own money, and all I got out of it was a hat made with my own fair hands (and time).
So rest assured what I write here is entirely, genuinely my opinion.

Right, moving on!
The hat kit supposedly contains everything you need to make the hat:

Crochet hook, ball of yarn, darning needle, little tag, and some basic instructions (which had a link to a video tutorial).

The box claims "Finished in 2H! Even Beginners!"

If the title of this post didn't already give it away, this project took me five hours.
That may be because I'm not so much a beginner as a novice. My knowledge of crochet extends to a couple of hours about a year ago, during which my friend Lianne taught me some basic crochet stitches.
Upon opening this kit and looking at the instructions, I realised I'd forgotten almost everything!

Originally I started to make this one evening, following the video instructions. But it went horribly wrong so I unravelled the lot and started again when I had a day to concentrate on it.

I found some parts of the video difficult to understand, ditto the written instructions.
The written instructions aren't particularly beginner-friendly--you definitely need to have a little knowledge of crochet and how instructions/patterns are worded!

However, after rewatching the video several times, it slowly began to make sense, and I remembered some of Lianne's explanations from before (and subsequently realised where I'd been going wrong!)

Despite finding some understanding of the instructions, I did keep losing count and having to unravel my crochets to find my place again!

The finishing touch was to make and add a pompom, and stitch on the little green label. These are the parts that the box doesn't supply the tools for, since the pompom requires two circles of sturdy card (or a pompom maker) and obviously a needle and thread are needed to sew on the label.
I didn't want the label on my hat, but I spent some time fiddling around making the pompom.

But finally the hat was done (less that label):

The kit seemed like a good idea, and my hat does look like the one on the box (with the exception of a wonky brim, because the tutorial doesn't show how to finish it off so it's even). But the claim that even beginners can make it in 2 hours is somewhat optimistic.
Still, I guess something like this would make a nice gift for a person who has already got into crochet.

I have a bit of yarn left over, though I'm not sure what to do with it...make another pompom, maybe?