Christmas FO: The Knight's Helmet

I have established a bit of a Christmas tradition with my brother. After the past few years of me giving him hats, it just became what he get every year. But he doesn't seem to mind! He has quite the collection of somewhat novelty beanies now (multiple bearded beanies, a brain, plain, etc), so this year when it came close to Christmas he had a specific hat to request that he had seen online somewhere: A Knight's Helmet. No problem :) 

After a pattern search on Ravelry, we settled on the Extra Thick Knight's Helmet pattern by Brie Crochet. This is a free pattern plus it looked closest to Briggs' inspiration hat, so I started making it. The hat is "extra thick" by holding 2 strands of worsted weight yarn as one as you crochet. This made for the hat extra thick but also quite stiff and not very stretchy. I had to steam it quite a lot and stretch it out to not be uncomfortable on him. Happily this seemed to do the trick and it fits well now. I also had to make changes to the length - I don't remember exactly how many rows I added, but it was probably a good inch or more. I made the hat as directed, then tried it on my husband and it was comically short, so I ripped back and extended it.

The best feature of this hat is undoubtedly the moving face shield. I was hoping to use a darker gray for the shadow lines, but black was all I had on hand plus that's what the pattern calls for so I went with it. The face shield took a bit of steaming and stretching as well to not be so stiff. The pattern actually has you double up the yarn like you do for the rest of the yarn and then carry the two strands of the color you are not using and crochet around them tapestry style - so this thing is extra EXTRA thick, lol.

You can keep the face shield on or remove it because it functions with buttons. I bought these coat of arms buttons at Hobby Lobby just because it went with the theme so well. I love that you can slide the shield up on your forehead when you go inside but that you can also unbutton it completely if it drives you nuts.

Because I extended the hat, I also had to extend the fin. The fin piece was the only part of the pattern I had trouble with. The instructions don't really tell you where to start sewing the fin on - it just says to sew it on. I actually attached the whole thing only to discover that if you put the fin too far forward the shield won't slide up :/ So I had to remove it and try again. It got there in the end though.

And here it is on Briggs on Christmas day :) The face mask is a bit loose, but he wanted to test it like this to see if he needed it this far out to breathe easily, lol. This way it's also easy to slide up, so we'll see. 

I love the sizing and how the length turned out for Briggs. I think it's the perfect helmet length. He brought this when he visited a friend in Utah earlier this month, and apparently it worked nicely :)

Summary:
Yarn: 1.03 skeins of I Love This Yarn in Gray Mist, 9 gr Vanna's Choice in Black
Pattern: Extra Thick Knight's Helmet by Brie Crochet
Notions: two 7/8" Coat of Arms buttons