I want to walk you through the process of creating a hat. Most of them start similarly, but you will see quickly where being a little creative can get you a LOT of options. Today's hat was Darth Vader in a size 3-5 years. I am making another one for big brother in the next size up (6-10 years) tomorrow. Lots of Vader this week!
Most of my hats start just like this:

Just a ball of yarn, a hook, and an idea. Usually I have a picture to go from. In this case it was something I saw while browsing Etsy. A friend had asked for hats for her boys and they are Star Wars fanatics. Since then I have had a couple of orders for more.
All of my hats start off looking something like this:

This is where I make adjustments for the size of hat it will be, and do any basic patterning that is on the body of the hat itself. Darth Vader is pretty basic to start and doesn't use any fancy stitches on the body of the hat or any other colors (obviously.)

This is the basic hat base for Vader. After I completed the base "beanie" section of the hat I just went back and forth across the back 2/3's of the hat, decreasing slightly so that it would flare back and down from the temples. Once that was finished I edged the whole thing in a single crochet to neaten the edges and give the hat a bit more structure.

This is how the mask starts. I found a nifty new stitch to use with this, called the Chainless Foundation Row. There are some great tutorials on YouTube, so have a look if you are curious. The chainless foundation gives a lot more stretch to the first row (which in this case goes directly over the nose, so it shouldn't be tight.)

Vader's Mouthpiece is what gives the whole hat its great look when it is done. I have found that almost anything can be broken down into basic shapes and for this it was circles and a rectangle on a trapezoid base. The original Darth Vader was all black, but when I tried that, it just didn't show up enough. Another friend of mine had just made a Darth Vader Cake (check out her Facebook Page!). She had used gray and white for the "shiny" parts of his mask and it looked fabulous. I used the same technique with a nice dark gray that I had on hand and it was perfect. The vertical lines were merely the ends of what I used to sew on the circles run up and down the mask a few times. The finished piece is what makes this hat almost as good as the real thing.

Darth Vader has a ridge down the top of his helmet, so I added that using the same chainless foundation as for the mask. It will allow the most stretch for the longest lasting wear.

The real trick to this hat is attaching the mask. I know as a kid I wasn't super comfortable with things over my face all of the time. And parents pay good money to give their kids my awesome hats. So I try to always make my hats as comfortable as possible. That means removable masks whenever possible. The buttons on the inside of the hat make this possible (note that the hat is inside out in the above picture).

And there you have it! A finished Darth Vader Hat. Below is a picture of the first one I did, modeled by my daughter. I am determined to get a mannequin head at some point to put these on!

I love making all of these hats! If you have any questions or comments be sure to leave a comment!
I recently updated my website as well, so check out www.blankets4blessings.weebly.com as well. All items for sale will be listed on my facebook page www.facebook.com/Blankets4Blessings from now on. Keeping track of three places to post new hats was getting to be too big a job for little old me. I figure you all would rather get the hats you ordered rather than just see pictures! Have a blessed day!