skull beanie hat

I have put another pattern onto Ravelry.

This hat design has waited several years to be knitted. I designed this skull and a robot beanie several years ago, but I wasn't sure who would wear them. I collected images of sugar skulls and monsters on my Pinterest board and pondered.

Plush monster hats were sold in our local market and children were wearing them to school, but not many adults were wearing them. I designed animal hats for the book Animal hats to knit and I found that if the hats had too much personality, they were more difficult to wear. An angry face or sad eyes on a hat somehow made you feel differently about the wearer. Even a friend of mine who collects skull images thought a skull beanie might be challenging to sell.

But then all this changed when I watched the opening scenes of the James Bond Spectre movie. I could see people wearing a skull beanie even if it was only for Halloween or Carnival.

I have styled the hat with the 'eyes' slightly to one side. I would style the animal hats I designed like this too. I used to wear a bear hat with the 'face' at the back of my head because, with the bear's face slightly tilted down and without my face, it looked like a bear was wearing my coat. It also made it easier for people to make eye contact with me when I was wearing the hat rather than with the bear.

I would suggest looking at images of sugar skulls and possibly adding embroidery and embellishments to this hat but I can testify it is fun to wear just as it is.