Straight Needle Hat

I knitted a hat! It is my second ever knitting project, and I am so excited about it. We have a new group at school that knits hats and donates them to shelters around town, and when we work on them at school we mostly just use hat looms. But when I got home from school yesterday it was grey and rainy out, so I was inspired to get out my knitting needles. I only have straight needles, so I wasn't sure how my hat would turn out. There are very few videos on YouTube for straight needle hats, and it's hard to find written instructions, too. Eventually through a combination of websites I found guidelines for size and when to combine stitches and whatnot. I think it turned out pretty well. It's small, so it'll be for a young girl, but I'm so excited about it! Here's how I made it:

1. Since I used fairly thick, fluffy yarn (it calls for size 10 needles) I cast on 50 stitches to get it to be about 18 inches in circumference (straight length right now)
2. I knitted 7 rows of regular stitches, then switched to purl one row, knit one row.
3. After I had about 4 inches of hat, I knitted 8, then knitted 2 together, repeating until the end of the row. I purled one row, and then knitted 7 then knitted 2 together. 
4. I repeated that until I had knitted 1, knitted 2 together. Then I just knitted 2 together for a whole row.
5. At this point I needed a yarn needle, but I didn't have one, so I got resourceful and used a dental floss threader I got back when I had braces (a bit flimsy, but it did the trick). I cut off the yarn, leaving at least three times the height of my had as a trail (although it was a bit much). I threaded the "needle" and carefully took my remaining stitches off of the knitting needle and pulled the yarn needle through the stitch loops.
6. From there I stitched the sides using a mattress stitch (I found a great video on YouTube for how to do it). You just take the yarn from where you pulled it through and start the mattress stitch. Voila! Hat!

My yarn had lots of little fuzzy bits that got in the way of my vision, so the mattress stitch didn't go perfectly, but  because of the fuzzy nature, you also can't really see my mistakes.

It's got a slight point, but it's cute

And this side has the seam. It goes right down the middle, but you mostly only see it at the top.

If anyone has any fairly basic patterns I'd love to hear them!