Week 1: Beard Beanies

Beard Beanies!  Made for Bryan and Alan on New Year's Eve.

I found what seems to be the ONLY FREE BEARD BEANIE PATTERN IN THE WORLD (here).  Thank you, Gumbo, for your pattern, your ideas and your generosity. Her blog "Gumbo Soul"  has these beards attached to Viking beanies.  SO cool.  Check her out!

Unfortunately, she changed the pattern after I finished Alan's and I can't really make sense of it anymore.  Luckily, her example, and my memory of Alan's were enough for me to make Bryan's on my own.  So I figured I'd write up my own pattern and now there will be two free patterns available out there!   Woo-hoo! 

Food for thought: Beards come in all colours, thicknesses, and textures.  So should beard beanies! I did Alan's thick and bushy (like a Leprechan's) with a bobble stitch, but I did Bryan's a little flatter and scruffier, with a crazy stitch.  I've seen them done more simply with a half-double, but I didn't really feel like that looked.... authentic...? (Authenticity: that's what we're going for with the beards made of yarn that attach to a beanie.)

crazy stitch

Bobble Stitch

*Crazy Stitch Tangent:  Does anyone know the correct way to decrease stitches when using something like a Crazy or Scallop stitch?  I ended up just Slip stitching from the top of one to the top of another without making the actual stitch in between.  It worked out just fine, but can that be right?*




Anyway, play around a little bit online, until you find a stitch that you think looks like a beard. 

Do the same at the yarn store.  I used sport weight yarn and a 5.00mm hook, for these, but you could use a much thicker, fluffier yarn, or one of those fuzzy, feathery, eyelashy yarns, to make it look more like real hair.

This does pose a slight pattern writing problem, because all of your different yarns, hooks, and stitch types are going to make for infinite possibilities in number of stitches.  But that's OK, because all of our faces are different too! And who says babies, with their teeny, tiny faces don't need beard beanies too?

Cus they can't even grow real ones.

Babies may need these most of all.

Also, girls can wear beard beanies too, even if my husband thinks it looks WAY too realistic for comfort.

Back to the point though, I am going to attempt to make a pattern that will work for ANYONE, regardless of face size, yarn type, hook size, and stitch choice.  I shoot high, what can I say?

 Warning #1: I have never written a crochet pattern before, so I apologize if this is confusing.  

Warning #2: I'm going to try and make these size variations using an Excel Spreadsheet.  Something   else I have NO experience with.

Due to Warnings #1 and #2, please let me know if this pattern and attached spread sheet work, or don't work for you.  I would love to make them better. 

About this pattern:

• Skill level: medium. If you can read a pattern, and know how to do different stitches, this project is SO easy, and can be completed during your favorite episode of Big Bang Theory (doesn't this seem like something Sheldon would wear?). If you'r new to crochet, learning the different stitches and following the pattern might take some more time.  But you can do it!
• This pattern is really only for the beard, works with any beanie pattern. 
• The other patterns out there have you stitch the beard directly to your beanie, which you could totally do.  I figured I might want to wear my beard with all sorts of beanies though, or possibly interchange a few beards too.  I didn't want anything permanent.  Luckily, most crochet and knit beanies have big enough gaps between the stitches that you can squeeze a button right through.  So I just sewed some buttons on the top corners of mine for easy attaching and detaching. This will mean that you can see the buttons on the outside of your beanie, but I think that's cute. Hopefully no one will guess based on your buttons that your beard is less than real. :).
• Abreviations: 
• Ch: chain
• t-ch: turning chain
• HDC: Half Double Crochet
• Sl st : Slip stitch
• 2tog: stitch two stitches together. aka: decrease. 
• SoC: Stitch of choice.  I made this one up.  It's just the stitch you choose to work your beard in. 
• CrzyStch: Crazy Stitch (what my beard is worked in)
• Materials: yarn, hook, (both your choice), needle, thread, buttons (2 or 4), scissors. 

Download now!

Beard Beanie Pattern    and    Beard Beanie Spreadsheet  

Can you say pitiful?!

Sad hudband of etsy?

If you end up making a beard, please let me know how it turned out.  Send me a picture even (erinmoschetti@gmailcom), and I can feature it on the blog.  Feel free to use the pattern to make your own beards for personal use, or to sell.  Please refer back to my blog if you feature your beard on your own.  Thanks so much!  

Happy crafting.