Hats for "The Hobbit"

Brendan as a Troll

While writing yesterday's post I realised that I should create a post about the hats I made for Brendan's class play last year. In March of 2010 his class of 6 boys did an adaptation of The Hobbit, requiring each kid to play multiple roles. Brendan was the only one who wanted to play Gollum (go fig) and so he was really pleased to get his first choice role. He also played Elrond, a goblin, a troll, the other Elvish king (Legolas' dad...), and the master of... wherever, at the end of the story. Hey, it's been a year!

Anyway, we were trying to figure out how to turn my blond, curly-haired, rosy-cheeked kid into Gollum. He had the voice down (gives you chills, it does) but not the look. It hit me that covering up his hair would be a good start, which led me to the idea of a hat. I had been making a bunch of Lion Brand's Earflap Hats and this seemed a good jumping-off place. Brendan & I got on Knitpick's web site to find the right colour wool & ended up with Wool of the Andes worsted in Thyme- a rather olivy-green. I used an I/9/5.50mm hook for all of the hats.

 Brendan wanted the Gollum hat to look as though he's just emerged from a nasty, dripping pool, so I added long bits to the ends of the earflaps, then decided to hang strands of yarn off the hat to make it look seaweedy. He was very pleased with the result, so I thought we could apply the same principle to a few of his roles.

Brendan as Gollum

I made the troll hat from Lion Brand Fisherman in natural grey, and added jaggy, multi-sized earflaps around the rim instead of just 2 earflaps, to make it look rocky & trollish. Brendan started wearing his hats for rehearsals & one of the other trolls liked Brendan's hat so much he asked me to make him one :)

For the master of wherever Brendan wore the hat from his dad's Dumbledore costume (that's another story...) & for Legolas' dad we came up with a wreath of woodland leaves. That left just Elrond. Long black haired Elrond... Which led me to dream up another hat, made from Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in black, with long dreads of chained crochet down & slip stitch back, all along the edge. I braided the first 3 on each side, and added the silver rick-rack to make him look more Elrondish.

Brendan thought it was much better than a wig. And by using hats, it made his costume changes much easier (they had to be very quick costume changes...).

Brendan as Elrond

My only regret is that they sit unused since the play :( But they worked up very quickly & were a lot of fun to make!

Roo Bear wearing the Elrond Hat