R2D2 knit hat pattern

I have finally gotten around to writing up the pattern and plotting the chart for my R2D2 toque (aka the R2D-toque).



The PDFs require Adobe Reader (or Acrobat), which can be downloaded for free here. The PDF of the pattern can be downloaded by clicking here and the chart by clicking here.

The hat was knit with Sandnes Garn Alfa colour 1042 (grey) and Galway colour 10 (navy), though a later incarnation used Diamond (colour 848) due to lack of Galway and a comment about itchiness. The little bit of red and black was good old Paton's Shetland Chunky from the stash.

I am assuming that knitters who come to this pattern know intarsia and knitting in the round. In terms of difficulty, I would rate this as intermediate if only for the number of different bobbins/balls of yarn that need to be wrangled. Frankly, having now knit three hats in one month, I'm a bit sick of it and am happy to turn over R2D-toque duties to the other knitgeeks out there.

I've tested the chart but not the written instructions, so if anything needs clarifying or if there are any errors, please leave me a comment.

R2D2 toque

On the 9th day of Christmas (i.e., 4 days before), I finished knitting another Star Wars project:


An R2D2 toque for Jeff, the same recipient of the Boba Fett balaclava. The pattern was inspired by another R2D2 hat I found online, but because I wanted more of a toque than a beanie, because my gauge was quite different, and because I'm anal-retentive and wanted a super-accurate pattern, I made my own chart, which I will post once I have a moment to figure out how to make an electronic copy.

For the knitters: I knit most of the hat on straight needles so that I could use the intarsia colour knitting method, though there was some stranded/Fair Isle knitting in an attempt to reduce the number of ends that would need weaving in. I even decreased on the straight needles until I got to the blue circle at the very top, whereupon I switched to dpns and sewed up the seam with a mattress stitch. As it turned out, my attempts to keep the ends to a minimum were unsuccessful.

Witness the hat's insides:


But once everything was woven in and cut off, the end result was, if I may say, brilliant:



Edited Jan. 22 to add: Post with pattern and chart can be found here.