Skeletoque, aka the Skeleclava

Step 3 Eye Holes

I thought and thought and thought, for days, about how I could make eyeholes as I knit. Finally I decided it just wasn't within my skill level and chose an easier alternative: knit a visor. With on big eye hole, the task was easy.

When you get to the right length and you want to begin the eye holes, mark the width across both eyes with a string of contrasting colour. Bind off that many stitches on your next row (try to count how many you're binding off).

From here it's like working one big short row. Just knit normally until you get to the end, and turn the whole piece around. Purl your way back to the start. Keep knitting and flipping until you've gone to the bottom of your eyehole. It's wherever you want it to be, really. Just make sure the hole is big enough to see out of.

When you want to build the bottom edge, just cast on as many new stitches as you bound off. Simple? Yeah, it is.

To separate this into two discrete holes, you'll need to knit a bridge from the bottom of the hole to the top. Find the middle and measure out a little to either side. Mark off the edges of your bridge, grab some needles (you can use straight needles, or just slip your hat onto some yarn and use your doulbe pointed needles. Pick up some stitches from the bottom edge and knit back and forth until your bridge is long enough to connect the two. Making it a little short will pull the eyes down menacingly.

Finally, connect the bridge to the top. Don't ask me how I did this. I kind of blacked out there for a while. Just make it up and hack it out. If mine looks ok, yours will look fantastic.

Comments

[Lyssa10]

Explaining your visor made it easier for me to figure out how to make separate eye holes. After binding off the stitches for the left eye, instead of breaking the strand, I made the stitch bigger and pulled all the yarn through. With that yarn, I continued to knit the bridge for the nose and held those stitches with a stitch holder. To bind off the right eye, I used a new strand the way you introduce a new color in intarsia, and from that strand, I continued to knit the back of the hat. For every row on the back I used a row counter so I could keep it even with the bridge of the nose (as much as I'd like it to look menacing, I don't know how well I could pull it off without getting arrested in LA and being a girl). When I make everything long enough, I'm just going to pick up the bridge stitches and knit in the round again. Love the Instructable. It's insanely inspiring, and I'm awed how you did this basically freehand.

[Robotrix]

You and me both! I still sometimes wonder how I managed to make all this up. It was my magnum opus and i never knitted anything as awesome afterwards. Your solution to the eye holes sounds way better thought out than mine. Do you mind if i include your strategy in the instructable to make sure people notice the alternative method?