Buffalo Bills Throwback Helmet Hat
2008 January 15
From this:
To this:
To this:
Wait, I should be smiling:
Phew. That was a challenging project. Thankfully, I love the end product, but it was a load of work to get there.
Buffalo Bills Throwback Helmet Hat
Pattern: my own design, based on my Dad’s request and a picture of an old helmet.
Neeldes: US 7
Yarn: Cascade 220 in navy and white, Plymouth Galway in red.
Start: Dec. 2007.
Finish: Jan. 2008.
How I Did It
- The hat was knit back and forth in rows using the intarsia technique.
- When the length reached 6″, I began the crown shaping by decreasing four stitches on each row on either side of the stripes (in the white section, leaving the stripes intact). The reason I did it this way was because I had just knit Whitney’s 70′s Hat from The Purl Bee. It used the same type of shaping and I thought it would give me the round helmet-y shape I was going for, while preserving the stripe placement.
- When there were 15 stitches left in the white section on each side, I began working back and forth on the front stripes only, joining it to the white section by *working to one stitch before the end of the row then ssk (or p2tog, if you’re on the purl side). Turn. Sl 1.* Repeat until all the white stitches have been consumed. Got it?
- Then, I grafted the front stripes to the back stripes, and sewed the back seam using mattress stitch.
- It was too big, so I had to felt it. Luckily I had the good sense to thread a strand of cotton through the back loops of the cast-on edge to facilitate the picking up of stitches for the hem, which I did post-felting. Unfortunately I did not have the good sense of grabbing the camera for pictures of this part of the process. I felted by hand, and that was something I had never done before.
- Here’s something fantastic I learned: To match the right leaning decrease of a k2tog on the purl side, you use p2tog. Well okay, I did know that, but I had no idea what the left leaning decrease would be on the purl side. So, thanks to my handy Vogue Knitting book, I learned that you do it thusly: s1 knitwise, s1 knitwise, put those stitches back on the left needle and p2tog through the back loop. Booya.
Now we just wait to see if my Dad likes it!
Wow. Wow. Wow. I can’t think of anything else to say. It looks amazing.
that is amazing and i bow to your awesomeness!
Looks great! Your dad will love it.
Your dad will love it, I’m sure. Great job!
He will LOVE it! You rock, Mandy. Totally original.
It does look great. I love how the white didn’t felt as much. Superbowl worthy, I’d say.
Wow! You did a great job!! I so want to do intrasia one day!
Fantastic!
Aren’t you just the most clever person? What a great gift, so excellently executed. I can’t say I’d want one myself, but I’m sure your dad is delighted.
Amazing!
You rock!
WOW. How fantastic to have an idea of something and be able to just DO IT, to your great satisfaction. You’re awesome.
Only knitters will know how much work that little piece of genius was. That is great stuff!
Amazing! You rock
What a fabulous gift
He looks proud and happy in it on your flickr page. Nice work!
Wow. That’s awesome!! So cool. What a great daughter you are.
Genius.
WOW! My hubby has been telling me he wants a helmet hat for skiing! He wants a Y on both sides and the stripe down the middle…but what is intrasia? I’m unsure where to start…