Yarncrafting Costumes: Designing Light-up Horns

In this guest post by Gali Beeri, she reveals a knitted costume perfect for the theme, “wicked witches” …

Just because Halloween is behind us doesn’t mean my costuming adventures have ended! I like to find opportunities for costuming year-round. The last costume party’s theme was wicked witches.

Choosing the project was the easy part – I’ve long been fascinated with the shape and dramatic look of Maleficent’s horns. Then it was time to select my yarn and start designing on the needles. I chose Vanna’s Choice^® in Black held together with (you guessed it) Vanna’s Glamour^® in Onyx for a touch of sparkle, worked on a US 8 needle.

I cast on a few stitches in I-cord, worked a few rows, and then started increasing and working in the round. I played with positioning of increases and decreases to create the desired slant and twist in the horns. Taking notes along the way, I reversed the shaping for the second horn to create mirror-image horns.

I knitted a flat circle for each horn and seamed it most of the way around each base. A length of jewelry wire bent into shape and inserted into each horn provided some structural support. Then I stuffed the horn with fiberfill and seamed the piece closed.

To affix the horns to my head, I stitched them to a sturdy lace-look elastic headband. Testing the placement of the horns while using the subway car door as a mirror perhaps entertained my fellow commuters!

From the beginning I knew I wanted the horns to have a light feature. In the past I’ve added string LED lights to my hair (for my winged superhero look), which were powered by a pack of three AA batteries. This can be quite cumbersome to carry on the head, so this time I sought out string LED lights with a smaller power source – two coin cell batteries. (I found mine here.) These smaller batteries are much easier to hide in my hair, especially when I added a piece of black lace fabric to my updo as a cover for the battery pack.

I wrapped a string of red lights around each horn, spiraling the wire around the knitted piece. This had the added benefit of helping the knitted piece to keep its shape, and the contrast of the silver wire against the black fabric also highlighted the curvature of the horns.

The horns made a comeback for another costume party. This time I turned my hair into a sculpture of sorts and added several decorative objects into the mix – including a knitted tiny turtle by Mochimochi Land!