Cute Chronicles – Phoenix Wright’s ‘Papa’ Hat Part 2

Su-per cutesy happy fun gaming crafty time!

A few months back, I posted my grand idea for knitting Phoenix Wright’s ‘Papa’ hat. Well, achievement unlocked – mission accomplished!

Time was a bit short over the summer, what with deadlines looming and work very harshly cutting into any gaming or knitting time, but thankfully I have a little more free time nowadays. Phoenix’s hat actually turned out to be a very fast knit, thanks to my experience of knitting cuddly hats. In total, it took 5-6 hours. As mentioned previously, the pattern for Phoenix’s hat ended up being a modified version of an existing hat. A few hours spare, needles primed and ready and yarn double-stranded, everything was good to go.

The first thing that became apparent was how bright the blue is. It’s quite a close colour match, but even so! Seeing it actually come together made it really obvious.

The brim was knitted in a rib pattern (2×1 rib if you want to get technical) and the rest of the hat knitted in stockinette stitch, to make the pink ‘PaPa’ pop and boy did it pop. The pink was just as bright as the blue, and the whole package together is really eye-catching. It’s just perfect that way, though!

Charting the ‘PaPa’ was the most difficult part, as anticipated. I used some knitters chart paper – which is just like graph paper – to make it easier to plot which stitches to knit pink and which to knit blue in order to create the design. My first attempt at charting the design came out a little too narrow for my liking, so a few modifications later and the ‘PaPa’ came out a little wider, but also a little shorter, much closer to how it looks in the game.

I had done a little more charting, following some complicated decreases which I didn’t even end up using. I used a very simple decrease style which created a neat shape to the hat, and matches to some degree Phoenix’s own hat.

If I were to do this again, I would make the brim a little narrower and perhaps change the rib pattern to make the ribs larger, maybe something like 4×2. When you put the hat on, the brim is quite large and dominates your head because of how it’s folded over. Also the way I wear the hat, the top of it is a little different from Phoenix’s because of the decreases – it’s less of a beanie and more of… a woolly hat, as in it doesn’t hug the head like Phoenix’s appears to hug his (got to keep those spikes in check). However, the ‘PaPa’ turned out very well, and it’s certainly a very noticeable hat! All it needs now is a badge.

Wearing this hat may increase your ability to spot logical flaws and deconstruct complicated plots. It may also cause you to be flippant and annoy characters called Apollo. Finally, it’s super, super comfy and warm. No wonder Phoenix is always wearing his…