Knitted Gas Mask Hat

[cat_goeddey]

 


Oh my goodness!!!! can you give me ANY clue on how to make one??? my husband is the gas mask guy for the air force and I sewed him a gas mask plushie but i think the hat and face shield would be awesome!!! he's in Korea for the next year and its 12 degrees there right now... just a lil chilly!

[Pepper Morrison]

wow, that is so clever! I do some paintings with gas masks in them, (i call them experimental but really I just can't paint very well) and let me tell you! You knit gasmasks better then i draw them!   

Amazed

[hildare]

he's all set for the pink floyd wall animation reenactment (sorry for the dorky comment)
but i have questions:
is there any way for a tutorial or a guide?
did he give feedback about whether it's good for breathing biking hard?
does the mask come off to leave a cool hat?
i cannot think of a single ONE of my bikepunky friends who wouldn't love this!
this rocks! you are awesome!
(i want to make a pink one for myself!)
hildare

[radiationbaby]

Holy cow!  Way to improvise, that's an amazing piece of head gear.

[Nuno930]

Hahah I must figure out a way to knit one myself for when DH deploys!  I can just imagine the mayhem the guys will have with that... 

[stitch and stones]

This is amazing! This rocks all the way. And way to show everyone how awesome knitters can be.

[kimmasaurus]

  this is hilarious!  great job!!!

[iridescent]

This is beyond awesome.
I would die for the pattern...but I won't because if you ever do give out the pattern or instructions, i wouldn't be able to knit a cool gas mask hat like yours.

[teriyakimoto]

I didn't keep too much track of  what I was doing as I knitted, but I can give you an idea of how I did it.  As I mentioned before, the back portion (hat) was Blue Hills from Knitty.com.  For the mask, I measured my friend's forehead and added  about an inch and a half for overlap.  I knitted a square for guage to calculate stiches per inch and knitted (stockinette stitch) the amount of stitches to fit my previous measurement.  I just knitted like normal until i reached the row where I needed to start the eyeholes. I figured this out by measuring the distance between where the top of the mask would overlap on the hat to his eyes. Once I got to where the eyeholes should be, I bound off those stitches.  At this point, I separated the stitches into 3 sections and put them onto stitch holders (1 section between the eyes, 1 on each side of the eyes = 2).   By doing this I would knit each section until it got to the row below the eye holes then join them back together on 1 set of needles.  For the top of the eyes I bound off stitches to create the hole, then the bottom of the eye hole I increased to connect the sections again.  After that I measured my friends jaw line and knit until I reached where his jaw sloped.  Then decreased by K2tog at the beginning and end of each row for several rows until I reached the point where the canister would be.  I did use a slight rib or seed stitch (can't remember) at the side for a half inch so the mask wouldn't curl as much until I hit the decreases.  I bound off all stitches.  The canister is basically a rectangle to cover the canvas ring i made.  And the end of the cannister was a rough circle I knitted by matching up about how many stitches to cover.  I stitched those two pieces to the canvas and connected the cannister to the mask by stitching the bottom of the mask to the uncovered end  of the cannister.  The part of the mask connecting to the cannister will not be the entire circumference of the cannister.  Then for finishing  I sewed velcro to the top of the hat and the underside of the mask.  I also folded in the top corners of the mask and sewed those as well. 

I'll try to get some more pics for you guys this weekend to explain some of this.  Please feel free to ask questions!  Maybe I'll try to put together an actual pattern when I have time (maybe spring break?).  I've got too much school and other projects at the moment to do it now.  I'm so glad you all liked it!

[Dorion]

Knitters are crazy.

This post showed up on three of my daily blogs today. THREE!

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/02/knitted_gas_mask.html?CMP=OTC-5JF307375954
http://www.geekologie.com/2008/02/knitted_gas_mask_will_keep_you.php
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/22/knit-gasmask-hat.html

Of course, they all do sort of feed off of each other, but it just shows how ass-kicking this project is.