Bearded Hats are the bomb

I'm not a huge fan of Larry The Cable Guy but I do agree when he said "That's funny, I don't care who you are."

This is our eldest, whom I call Legs because he's a half foot taller than me.  His name is very Norse and he loves bearded hats, so I wasn't too surprised when he came to me and asked for a helmet with horns and an orange beard.  We are a family of Pittsburgh Steelers fans and used that when we had discussed colors for the hat.


I attempted a bearded hat many moons ago.  About a year and a half ago I think.  The hat itself was brown, the beard was sewn to it, unmovable.  Before long the beard was stretched and needed tightened.  My son wore it to school (half mile walk in south eastern PA) so it ended up frizzy and full of fuzzballs.  I added an extra strip around the bottom of the hat with a darker color lined around the edges to strengthen where I had stitched the beard.  The popcorn beard wasn't very impressive.  I made it up on the fly as I didn't have a good understanding of the stitch.

After being asked for the hat I searched for some that were similar.  Cutie Hats (link on the lower right) had one but I wanted multiple colors and horns smaller and more similar to the red one eyed monster I'd done before.  Also I wanted a couple of features no one would have.  Buttons.  Not just on the beard, that's been done.  No no, I wanted removable horns.  Sounds nuts.  Yeah,  I know.  But the cup like bands around the bottom of the horn was the key.  I could make that, stitch buttons to it and stitch the horn on after that.  I placed two buttons under each horn and one on each side of the head, in the hat, for the beard. 

I did have a good reason for this madness though.  We currently live in the country, so no more long walks or need for the beard all the time.  The Eldest rides the bus beginning at 6:50am until 7:30 or so.  He may not want to wear the horns or be allowed to on the bus.  Once he's at school, hats off until 3pm.  So I wanted to make something that's similar to a beanie, look cool, but also functions with funny horns and beard. 

Legs came home from school yesterday with both horns at the front of his head.  He's a weirdy but he loves his hat.  When asked "where did you get that?", his reply was "Well you can't get it from Walmart, I'll tell you that right now!" :p  He's heard me fuss enough about cheap knit hats killing the knitting circles and folks at home working their fingers til they're sore.  That's our boy.

Half Life

Half Life (and it's babies HL2, all the episodes, etc) found a place in our home many many years ago.  A couple of years ago Valve (creator) and Steam (online game client) created the Orange Box, a collection of many of their games all in one box.  Steam allows users who have the game to go online and share their stats and play with other people from around the world.  Not only can we LAN from computer to computer and play but also with family members in other states.  (With them having their own game and key, of course.)  We've been die-hard fans for years!

When Legs asked me for a hat, he asked for a ghost from Pac-Man.  That one wasn't turning out the way I had hoped so I asked what else he wanted.  Well of course his answer wasn't a hat at all but an XBox 360 and Halo Reach.  sigh.  Yeah I walked right into that one.  So we discussed what about his favorite games (and his dads) we could do for a hat.  As we were flipping through images on google I saw The Orange Box and their emblem stood out to me.  Originally it was designed after an arm and hand grasping a crowbar, something often used as the only or primary weapon in Half Life games.  Legs loves it and wore it to school to tell everyone how much he loves the games and the hat. :)  This hat is strictly fan art from folks that admire the games.  If you are considering purchase, please be aware that it is in no way a licensed product.  I have no affiliation with Steam or Valve whatsoever.