Saturday, January 24, 2015

Sir Knight Helmet

I don't remember when my SIL saw the Sir Knight Helmet and asked me to make her one, but it was certainly after last Christmas because I immediately added it to my queue.  Flash forward to November 2014 and I have not really made anything for ANYONE for this holiday season.  I underestimated my abilities to knit and crochet gifts for people this year, but as of mid November I wanted to see if I could whip out this hat.



My head is 21” around so I selected the “Adult” Size. I know my husband would need “Large Adult,” but my SIL should be fine with the smaller version.  My SIL has a lot of hair, but I don't think this is a helmet that you could fit over a bun anyway.  

As I prepare to start the pattern, I gasp.  A "J" hook!  I didn't like the gauge I got with an H hook and the same brand yarn when I made the Minion Mitts.  I think I'll hold the yarn double for the hat portion to make things thicker and keep the stitch count the same.  Maybe I'll go to single stranded for the embellishments.  


I crocheted this hat with a size J (6.0 mm) hook and two strands of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Worsted Weight yarn in Silver held together.  I was about to join each round but then I caught myself and read the instructions to proceed WITHOUT joining.  Look at me, reading.  I haven't done an HDC spiral before but I think it looks okay.  


After round 8, the hat measured 7" across.  It fits the top of my head comfortably, so hopefully it will fit when I start adding more pictures around.  I am gonig to leave a marker at the end of this round so if I have to tear back I know where to tear back if necessary.  Note to myself:  Light marker is last stitch of round 8, dark marker is the first stitch of the new round.  


I've done a number of crochet projects, but most of the hats have had a DC base so they whipped up really fast.  I think knitting is MUCH faster than doing a hdc brim to a hat.  Since I am holding the yarn double I do have some yardage concerns, but at the time I'm crocheting KnitPicks' Cyber Monday sale is just around the corner so as long as I make good progress before Thanksgiving I know that I'll be fine.  

The hat is fitting on my head with no ease.  Perfect!  This is the way a helmet should fit a head, right?

I finished the first two balls of WOTA on the last round of the main hat body.  The hat measured 7.75" I'm not very good at counting crochet rows, but by my best guess I have completed 20 rounds total.  I'm ready to start the back of the helmet and I still have a full ball of yarn left.  Will I have enough to complete the project?

I finished the 4 rows of the neck piece and then fastened off.  If I have yarn at the end and want this longer I can always add another row (a great benefit to crochet vs knitting!)


I felt really confused as I looked at the next directions.  What is the visor button?  OH, I just realized that the larger sizes (child-large adult) have a button attachment for the visor where the younger versions are sewn on.  I'm not crocheting a button for the visor, I'm making the visor with a button hole.  (EEk, I need buttons!)  I feel a little silly, I need to work on my reading comprehension.    

When I started the visor, I had 31 g of silver yarn left.  I am surprised to realize that the vents are sewn on, versus made in alternating colors.


Whoops, I didn't switch to a smaller hook for the visor.  This isn't a huge issue, but I'm already on Round 7 and don't want to start over if I don't have to.  Uhoh.  16 g remain after the first half of the visor.  I now know that I will need more yarn to finish this project.  I would have stopped here (I have to work on my Pins and Needles Challenge project) but I wanted to finish as much as I could of the second side so I could try to keep some consistency with my tension.  I will order another ball of yarn on Cyber Monday.  

There is a bit of a ridge in the face mask so I blocked this out while taking the break waiting for more yarn to arrive.  I only lightly blocked it by wetting the center yarn and laying flat.  



I finally have my 4th ball of silver and am ready to finish up this hat.  I whipped up the blade of the hat using ## g of yarn while watching Storage Wars.  I still held the yarn double with the J hook.  There was no round 2 written in the adult version so I did rounds 2-5 as SC around for the blade.


Now it was time to make the vents on the blade.  I really didn't want to crochet separate pieces for each vent and sew them on.  I saw some projects on Ravelry where they just slip stitched blak up in various places, and that is exactly what I'm going to do.  I used a G hook and a single strand of Wool of the Andes in coal.  After I put the vents on I did a sc border around the edge of the mask (I realized that I forgot to do this before.)  I used a single strand the G hook.


It took some playing to get the button placement correct, but I think that I'm happy with it in the end.

Seriously, how cool is this hat?  There is a slight chance that the visor will actually keep your nose warm, but mostly it is just super cool.



Would you wear this hat in the winter to keep you warm?