First there was the Dwarven Battle Bonnet, which was my very first pattern, and lots of you seemed to enjoy knitting it. However, it called for fulling to achieve size, and had a rather rambling pattern, and that didn’t suit everyone, plus, I kept getting requests for the variation with Spangenhelm and Rivet detailing. There definately seemed to be a need for a second version. Here it is!

Dwarven Battle Bonnet 2 is a bearded balaclava inspired by Viking helmets and by mythology, with a good dollop of silliness thrown in.

It is worked top down in the round, starting with the helmet which features a knotwork and rivet encrusted design and a ‘spectacle’ eye area. You then move straight into knitting the beard, and finish up by adding braids and moustaches to suit your taste.

Whilst you can knit it large and full it down if you want to, the pattern is written to work without fulling, so you can use any yarn you like. There is also a child size option, and notes on how to adjust for different head sizes.

The pattern has charts for the helmet, whilst the beard has written instructions. Like all my character hats, it lends itself to variations, and there are suggestions in the pattern on how to personalise it.

Yardage will depend slightly on your yarn choice and how fancy you make the beard, but as a rough estimate I used about 60g of the helmet shade in aran, and just under 100g of the beard shade on mine.

Everyone needs a silly hat in their life