Pattern Dream:
This pattern was born out of the hearts and minds of The Village of the Hopelessly Over Committed also known as VHOC. During the build up to the Ravellenic 2012 games we were entertaining ourselves with a very large amount of what we refer to as enabling. Enabling takes the form of trolling through the Ravelry Pattern Database and finding as many wonderful things to knit as we possibly can thus encouraging each other to reach for the stars for pattern ideas for the games. I personally find toys a very fun thing to knit and spent most of my time trolling the pattern space for them. One day I found a marvelous Armadillo pattern Named Don the Dillo by Ravelry’s very Own Gabrielle Theriault. I posted this pattern into the team thread. This pattern posting then sparked a very lively conversation about the state of Armadillos in the southern portion of the United States. The discussion centered on the fact that, unfortunately, there are many more dead armadillos on the sides of the roadways rather than live ones. The idea was then broached that we needed a Dead Armadillo Hat pattern. Alas, none were to be found in Ravelry or in the outside world. I took up the challenge to create the hat for the 2012 Ravellenic Games. I had the perfect Armadillo part of the hat, but much to my chagrin I was unable to think of a method to knit the shell of the armadillo. I then took solace in looking for baby hats for a friend’s little girl. While in my search for the perfect baby hat, I stumbled upon the marvelous Aviatrix Hat by Ravelry’s very own Justine Turner! My day was then complete and I had the perfect hat in my mind. Please use following recipe to create your very own Dead Armadillo Hat.

I must now give full credit to both Justine Turner and Gabrielle Theriault for their contribution to the hat. Without their inspiring patterns this Armadillo hat would never have been created. Thank-you Ladies!
Enjoy!

How to make your very own Village of the Hopelessly Over Committed’s Dead Armadillo Hat.

Aviatrix Baby Hat Portion:
Please go to Ravelry’s Aviatrix Baby Hat by Justine Turner. Use the hat pattern for your desired size, in the yarn weight of your choice.
Since this was done on a lark I used some old stash Red Heart Super Saver Worsted Weight acrylic yarn for my knit.
Knit the pattern as instructed (changing over to red when the ear flap portion is started) until you get to the last row of the ear flaps. I continued the decreases until I had 5 stitches left (I would recommend 5 for all adult sizes and 3 stitches for a child’s hat) and then knitted those remaining stitches as an i-cord until I reached the desired length. I then cut the yarn and threaded it through the end stitches and pulled them tight. I repeated this process for the other side. I created tassels by wrapping yarn around a 3 inch wide piece of card board until I had my desired thickness (in my case 25 wraps) and created a tassel. I tied the tassel on to the i-cord with the left over yarn and threaded the extra yarn up into the i-cord.

Don the Armadillo Portion:
Please go to Ravelry’s Don the Dillo by Gabrielle Theriault. Use the Head, ears, legs and tail portion of the pattern with the same weight yarn you used in the hat pattern. NOTE: Do not stuff them!!!!
Attach Armadillo parts to the hat (I used a blanket stitch but please feel free to stitch on however you choose):
The Head: Sewn (a little crookedly) to the front of the hat. I used some scrap black yarn and stitched in X’s for the eyes.
The Legs: Sewn to the sides (just in front of and behind the ear flaps)
The Tail: Sewn to the center back of the hat (I used a piece of scrap yarn to stitch a small kink in the tail).
Now you have your very own Dead Armadillo Hat.

Prior Notes!
7/12/12
The goal of this project is to design and knit a Dead Armadillo hat for the VHOC. This came out of a discussion about a cute armadillo toy pattern and the following discussion where we have only seen dead armadillos rather than the live ones. So I will be attempting to create our very own VHOC Dead Armadillo Hat complete with earflaps.

LOL this yarn was from a deep stash dive looking for a grey yarn that could be used for a dead armadillo hat!

7/24/12 Update!!! Am going to use the Aviatrix baby hat as a base for this design along with the Don the Armadillo! It is perfect!

7/28/12
Shell is done. Just found that missing red yarn for ear flaps off to store to go get it. Plan on finishing today if lucky!

OMB it is finished!!! It was so so fun thank you VHOC for your inspiration. Finished 7/28/12 8:59 pm mdt

Please keep the copyrights of both of the used patterns in consideration!