Lucha libre balaclava

Last Sunday, my friend Reinout celebrated his birthday. As a present, he wanted to have a balaclava. Given the low temperatures and snow we had here lately, that wasn’t so bad an idea. So I got out my knitting needles, took out Debbie Stoller’s Son of Stitch ‘n Bitch and started working the Lucha Libre balaclava.

What I liked about it
This one is a fast knit. I only started it at the beginning of December, and I got along quite fast.

It’s also a great way to practice your intarsia technique. Or should I call it intangledsia?

Now, I know this looks like some kind of nightmare, but in fact, it’s not that bad. If you are knitting intarsia, you do not drag your yarn along behind the work. Instead, you use a new strand of yarn every time you change colour. So in fact, it’s a bit like a puzzle. Of course, while knitting, these strands get a little tangled, as shown in the picture. But untangling it all is a bit of a puzzle as well, and, to be honest, I don’t mind it all that much. Weaving the untangled ends in is a bit more tiresome, though.

Rough patches

As I said, I wasn’t too wild about weaving the ends in. All in all, it took me a few hours to do so. I guess you just need to put your mind to it. Brace yourself for the fact that you won’t be knitting that night, but you’ll be weaving. And all in all, the end result wouldn’t look as nice as it does when you leave all the ends just dangling about.

I was also a bit surprised that this mask was knit flat, and not in the round. Since you have a center back seam, it seemed so obvious and less tedious to do it in the round. But then I just read today that it’s not that simple to do intarsia in the round. Since you leave your coloured ends dangling and then pick them up again on the next row, it’s important that you knit back and forth. If you do it in the round, your yarn will always be on the other end of your colour patch. Not that handy. So flat it is.

I’m quite happy with the result. It’s nice and warm, and it looks a lot more friendly than your average balaclava. If the person wearing it is laughing, that is. If not, it actually looks quite scary.

So I gave the balaclava to Reinout last Sunday. The best day, since it had been snowing again. We immediately went out to test it.

It passed the sleighing and snowball fight test. Not only did it keep Reinout’s head warm, but his nose and ears as well. And no children started crying or screaming when he went by. All that’s still left to do is the cycling test: does the wind cut through it, or not? Let’s hope it doesn’t.