Halloween Project # 6: Viking Hat and Beard

Well guys, here you go. As promised, one full-on amazingly badass Viking get-up. As I write this, my eyes are drooping and my whole body feels numb with exhaustion. I'm finished with day 7 of a 9 day work week, and I can honestly say that this project got me through most of it. It kept my spirits pretty high, my hands busy and my mind occupied on other things besides...well, work.

This whole project took about 6 days, and I'd say overall it cost me about $25 to do (although worth every penny when Gabe put it on and the thing actually fit). I'm sure one could also do it for cheaper, but I used Caron Simply Soft, which runs about $4.50/skein. You could easily use Red Heart for $2.90/Skein, I just wanted it to be as nice as I could make it (I tend not to skimp on yarn when it's a gift).

Unfortunately, $6.50 of that expense was purchasing the pattern, so unfortunately I can not provide it for you here, it would not be fair to anyone, especially the creator of the hat.

If you would like the pattern of the hat, it can be purchased through Etsy here.

If you would like the pattern for the beard, you can get that for free on Ravelry here. However, as I stated in my last entry, throughout the beard I used long rows of fringe to make the beard more realistic, then added 'sideburns' so they could properly connect to the hat.

If you're looking for something to get you through a long week, or something to keep you warm and silly through the winter, I definitely recommend both the hat, as well as the beard. Both of these pieces were equally fun to make, and I had a ton of fun getting a laugh out of my co-workers by explaining to them that I spent my day crocheting a beard :)

Here are some more detail shots:

I added a button to the inside of the hat, and a loop at the end of the 'sideburns' so the beard can be attached or detached whenever you want.

Hat, sans beard.

I'd never used 'fun fur' yarn before, and although it looked quite sparse and difficult to use at first, it ended up being rather easy and fuzzy.

This was a great project, and I definitely recommend spending the $6.50 to make it (or if you're really crazy, you can just improvise based on photos).

Hopefully next project will be something great, but I'm not sure what yet! I hope you guys got a little bit of inspiration from these pictures, and I can't wait to take more 'action shots' of this as Halloween approaches :)

Viking Beard

Gabe being a fantastic model

While this beard may seem as though it's in the spirit of Halloween, it really isn't. My lovely boyfriend had his birthday last week (it was the 1st anniversary of his 29th birthday!), and while a sushi dinner was probably sufficient, I still felt as though his 30th should be bigger and better. For my 22nd birthday, he spent 50+ hours making me a digital painting of Mermaid Fairy Princesses, so I thought I should make him something, too.

The idea came about on the night of his birthday when we were looking through Ravelry patterns together, and it all came to me in a beautiful clear picture when a friend of mine posted a picture of a 2' long crocheted Viking beard to a crocheted Viking hat on my Facebook wall. So we decided that was what was going to be made.

I used the beard from this pattern as a kind of 'face cozy", then proceeded to take groups of 4 strands of yarn and pulled them through like fringe on a scarf throughout the beard. I used about 160 groups of this 'fringe' to make different layers of 'hair' on the beard. I used a little over a 315 yard skein of Caron Simply Soft to make this, but I think it was completely worth it.

The Viking Hat will be next, probably done in a few days or so :)