Recently my BIL jokingly requested a hat that he could wear in the cold winter months of the east coast. Knowing that he worked out doors a lot, I knew it would have to be a ski mask or balaclava type hat, which created a little bit of a problem... I had never stitched one of these up, but how hard could it be! The other problem was that he wanted a Minion hat. Now I recently had made a couple of minion hats for my niece and nephew (which also happen to be his children), so I knew I could handle that part of it, but how to make it fit the style of a balaclava.
I searched and searched, and there aren't a lot of patterns out there for balaclava hats... and there are absolutely none for a minion balaclava hat... so now I had to do some thinking. I finally found a pattern for the balaclava portion of the hat over at 2 Crochet Hooks Etsy Store. Now all I had to do was figure out the pattern for the minion. I had a pattern that I found somewhere along the way (I wish I knew where I found it, but I can't remember. My collection of patterns is huge, so it could have been from anywhere. If you want a pattern for a minion hat go to Etsy or Ravelry and search for minion crochet... tons of them there!)
Finally after a lot of thought and consideration (go ahead and ask the BIL, this was a very long process)... I finally plunged ahead and started my project! The top part was pretty easy, I followed the pattern, but had to keep constant check on how big it was getting, thankfully my hubs was willing to try it on for me several times to check the fit!
Then I had to start the whole eye open thing. This was a little tricky, and in the end I had to go back and fill in a little bit due to the eye section being too big, but it worked out in the end!
Next came the blue of the jeans that the minions wear! That was simple enough too! However, when I got to the end of the pattern, the back of the hat hit the shoulders nicely, but the front of the neck was exposed to the air... so I decided to just go ahead and make that part longer!
My BIL also wanted it to be a little "evil", so I added a little bit of purple with a mohawk so that it looked like he was either changing to the evil minion or reverting back to the nice little minions we all love and secretly wish we had at our disposal! As you can see above, the back hits very nicely where the shoulders would meet.
The front is a little bit longer, but it works out nicely on an actual person...
All in all, I think it came out good!
