Hi! I'm Karen M. Andersen - welcome to my tutorial on how to make crocheted covers for your clothes hangers! I learnt to crochet around 6 months ago and, with Summer coming on here in Australia meaning it is way too hot to crochet blankets, I was on the lookout for a crochet project that was easy, fun, colourful, functional, and quick to make up. After seeing so many pretty hangers online, I decided to try my hand at making up some crocheted covers for the many old wooden clothes hangers hanging in my wardrobe. I quickly became obsessed with making them and putting my modern-vintage take on an old favourite. I love the instant gratification that making them brings too, not to mention the way that they protect my much-loved clothes from shoulder damage and stop them from slipping off their hangers.

Realizing that there are many of you out there who love vintage things and quick crochet projects as much as I do, I decided to write this tutorial. I have learnt so many things from online crafters over the last few years especially, and by offering my crocheted clothes-hanger tutorial for free, it's my way of giving back to the community. I am not a professional crocheter so forgive me if I do not use any exacting standards :)

I ask that you please respect my work - I designed the method for making my hangers and this tutorial completely by myself and I would like to keep it available for free to anyone who wants to use it. This tutorial is not to be used to make hangers for you to sell, and it is not to be resold in any manner. Feel free to use it to make hangers to hang product on in your online or bricks-and-mortar stores, as props for your store products, or for props for photos for your blog/website. If you do use my tutorial to make your own hangers, or mention it anywhere online, please link back to my original tutorial and credit me as the designer. If you use it, I would love to see how your hangers turn out too, so feel free to send me some pics or a link. If enough of you use the tutorial, I will make up a photo album with links to your original blog, website, or photos and include it here on my blog.

I really do hope that you enjoy my tutorial and making your hanger covers as much as I do! Let's get started, shall we?

 

 

I have designed this tutorial so that everyone, from beginners to advanced crocheters, can construct hanger covers easily and quickly...and with little expense involved too. You will need just the basic crochet supplies that I have outlined above...isn't that great? If you don't have these on hand, you can easily find them at any craft store. Stores like BigW here in Australia have these supplies, including inexpensive yarn and hangers, and you can also find old wooden hangers at second-hand stores for next to nothing. 

Whatever yarn you have on hand is fine - the brand, weight and thickness of the yarn will make little difference, as will the hook size tension that you crochet at, as it is the overall size of your finished piece that matters only. I will explain that more later :)  You can even use scraps left over from other projects and join them together to make multi-coloured striped hanger covers as I did. I'll explain how to do this as we go along. As a guide for you though, I used Panda Magnum 8 ply acrylic yarn (100g NET) in various colours for my hangers - Magnum comes in a huge range of colours! For American crafters, Panda Magnum is very similar in quality and colour range to your Red Heart Classic Yarn (solid colours). There is some gorgeous yarn available online, including handspun varieties on Etsy, so go explore and see what you can find. 

Finally, remember that you are only limited by your imagination with this tutorial, so prepare yourself with a hefty dose of it and have fun :)

 

 

To begin, crochet 13 chain stitches to form your foundation chain. When you finish your chain, you will want to wrap it around your wooden hanger to ensure that it is going to fit. If not, either add in more chain stitches, or pull a few out until it fits around the hanger without stretching the chain. The chain should fit loosely around the hanger so that your finished hanger looks nice and neat with no holes between the stitches. As a guide, with my hanger being approximately 1/2 (half) an inch square in diameter, the covers that I made using this method are 1/2 an inch wider than the total width of my hangers, so for the purposes of stitching up your hanger covers later on, you should make your cover 1/2 an inch wider than the total circumference of your wooden hangers. I hope that makes sense :)

You can use any crochet stitch that you like to make your hanger covers - I used treble crochet stitch (double crochet stitch for USA readers). Just use whatever stitch you are most comfortable/familiar with. For the purposes of this tutorial though, I will refer to treble crochet so remember that if you are using a different stitch or replace the term with double crochet in your country. 

For treble crochet, insert your hook into the third chain in your foundation chain and work a treble crochet stitch. Continue back along your chain stitching treble crochets into all of your chain stitches. When you get to the other end of the foundation chain, make three chain stitches, turn your work, and move onto the next row working treble crochets.

Continue crocheting until you have a strip that is around 1/2  an inch longer than your wooden hanger. To try it on for size, and you can even pin the cover together around the hanger to give an idea of how it will look and fit when it's stitched up. As a guide, my hangers are approximately 1/2 an inch square in diameter and 15 & 1/2 inches long. My finished crocheted strips measure 2 & 1/2 inches wide and 16 inches long and fit my hangers perfectly. When you are happy with the length of your strip, cast off and leave a tail of yarn hanging from your piece that is 5 inches long. Snip off your yarn at this point and you are finished!

 If you are like me and you can't stop at one, you might want to make a whole bundle of crocheted hanger covers in all the colours of the rainbow :) You can make striped versions, too...these are my favourites to make, but they are a little more time consuming and fiddly. This is where you really get to have fun and experiment with colours! Try browsing Flickr for colour combos that you like and use them in your hanger-making. You can also search Colorlovers for palettes that you love, or make up your own colour palettes on the website. Or, bust out some coloured pencils or paints and play around with colours in a notebook. As I said earlier, you are only limited by your imagination!

To make striped hangers, I work in treble crochet, stitching two rows in each colour. You can, of course, make your stripes uneven in width by varying the number of rows that you crochet in each colour for a fun alternative. At the end of the second/last row, I work the new colour into my final treble crochet stitch, the last one before I make the turning chain. Make your turning chain in the new colour, and continue onto your new row. I leave tails on each colour of around five inches long, knotting the two firmly together at the side of my work to join them. You can weave the ends in as an extra safeguard to prevent unravelling later on, if you like. I snip the tails off near the knot and then try them on for fit and stitch them up.

Okay, now you are ready to put your hangers together! Read on to find out how...it's easier that you think :) 

 

 

 

 

Before you start stitching up your hanger cover, start by unscrewing and removing the hook from the hanger. There's no need to mark the hole because it is easy to find it again later on.

Thread a needle with some yarn the same colour as your hanger cover (I've used white yarn here simply so that it's easier for you to see where my stitches are going). At one end of your hanger, weave your needle in and out of the top of the chain stitches, moving across from one side to the other.

Next, pull your needle and yarn through the other side so that what you have in front of you looks like the photo above. This forms a drawstring that will close up your end.

Remembering which side of your work is the wrong side, tie a simple single knot using the two tails of the yarn that you have pulled through. Pull the knot tight, and tie a double knot. You will not see the puckered end as this will be on the inside of your hanger cover. The wrong side of your work should be on the inside of your hanger at this stage, and the right side on the outside...don't forget! Now snip one tail of the yarn short and leave the other long. This long tail will be used to stitch your cover closed.

Okay, time to start stitching it up! You can use any method that you like to do this. I just weave the needle in and out of the cover (see above), making sure that the line of stitches is about 1/4 inch in from the edges of the cover. Make sure that your edges line up though before you start stitching so that your cover turns out to be uniform in size. To stitch up striped hangers, you may want to stitch along the different coloured sections using the corresponding yarn colour. This is really easy to do! Just use the same method that I have described here, but knot each colour together as you go along.

You might want to try your cover on your hanger at this point to see if it fits right, if you haven't already. Adjust your stitches accordingly if you need to. Remove your hanger again and continue stitching down the length of the cover until you reach the other end. Don't stitch that end closed just yet, you have to turn your cover in the right way first!

Next, lay your hanger cover out flat on a table. Take your wooden hanger and butt one end of it up against the end that you have already closed shut.

With one hand on the hanger and the other end on the cover, push the end of the hanger into the cover's end. Roll the cover up over the hanger with your other hand (see the photo below). Don't worry if it looks a little bent out of shape while you are turning it...it will spring back into shape in no time. Keep rolling the cover on until it fully encloses the wooden hanger.

Now pull your cover into shape. Make sure that the seam along the length of your cover sits along the bottom of your hanger so that it is not noticeable when it's in use. To close up the open end of your cover, use the same method that you used to stitch the other end closed. Remember to draw the ends up, knot tightly, and weave the short tail in or cut it off leaving one long tail still threaded through the eye of the needle. To neaten off this end, weave your needle through a few strands of yarn across the end. Repeat, working around the end in a circular motion. When you are happy with how it looks, tie it off using a tight double knot. Don't snip your yarn yet! Weave it through a few more strands at the end and then snip. This makes the end look nice and neat.

Finally, find the middle of your hanger. Poke the screw-end of the metal hook in through your stitches, screw it in tight and...you have a finished crocheted clothes hanger!

 

CONGRATULATIONS! You've made it through the tutorial, and now you should have a beautiful crochet-covered clothes hanger (or several, if you have become as addicted to making them as I have) that you made all by yourself :)

I hope that you are happy with your new creation/creations and found my tutorial useful easy to follow. If you have any questions about any aspect of it, please don't hesitate to leave a comment by clicking on the link below or by contacting me via email at the following address... karenm.andersen@ymail.com. Remember, I'd love to see some pics of your finished hangers, so feel free to send me a couple or a link to your blog, Flickr, etc. where you have uploaded them.

Thank you so much everyone! I've really enjoyed writing this tutorial for you all :) Look out for more crafty tutorials from me on this page in the future.

Bye for now!