Skull pants - Part 1

In the past, all I've ever knitted were scarves. I have a closet full of them to prove it {and so does my mother}. Even recently, my 'Simon' cowl was a straight forward scarf - the ends were just crocheted together.

But in September my first request came in. It was from a friend in Canada for a pair of knitted trousers for her year-old son. Said friend asked me if I could make something like this {linkage coming soon} - knitted black trousers, skull on the tush area, and striped legs. They were a mighty impressive pair of pants, but at the same moment I thought 'shit'. Please refer to the first paragraph. It was time to step up. Seven years of knitting scarves has to have been enough practice.

So, I scoured the internet high and low for a tiny trouser pattern that would importantly, be a pattern I could understand and not eff up. I won't lie to you - I was worried. Until I came across Das Monster pattern by an Icelandic knitaholic, Hrönn Jónsdóttir {via Sharon Watterson on Info Barrel}. It was the perfect template for the skants. It was in plain knitting English, and seemed really straight forward.

The most difficult part to knit was the skull. I designed an old-school pirate skull and cross bones myself. Hardcore. No baby stuff. Since I made up the aesthetics of the pattern, it was tough to figure out the skull placement, since I had no pattern to refer to. It took a lot of thinking and making lots of 'ehhhh' sounds. My boyfriend was worried knitting had claimed its first victim. I soon figured it out {with the help of Excel} and felt like I had overcome my first huge hurdle in knitting. I won't go into details here. You can see my inane explanation and pattern at the end of my post.

Completed skants. Left - front of skants, right - back and skull.

The completed skants. The inseam has weird bulge areas from where I decreased the rows ... I like to think it's tailor made for baby folds and diapers. I made the legs super long {folded up in the pictures}, to achieve optimal wear time. It took me a couple of weeks to knit these, but if you sat down and seriously put your mind to it {say, if you live by yourself and have a maid and don't have a job or are enrolled in college}, it could take just a few days. A week would be possible. 

Should you like to see more details {such as design and pattern} on the skants, check it out below. To see the my newly added skants in action, click here. Happy knitting! 

Abbreviations explained:

CO - cast on

St{s} - stitch{es}

K - knit

P - purl

Knitting pattern for skants:

CO 108 sts on 3mm needles, join on the round and do a 2x2 ribbing (k2, p2) for 20 rounds. 

Change to 3.5mm needles and knit one round, increasing by 1st per row for the next 4 rows = 112sts on the needles.

Continue in stockinette stitch and begin skull pattern as indicated in grid to the left {click to enlarge}. A total of 53 rows in stockinette stitch including skull. 

The piece should measure roughly 12 inches at the completion of the skull. From here, I increased on every second row. First, increase by 4sts over four rows {2sts per row, leaving plain row in between each increase}. Then increase by 6sts over four rows {3sts per row, leaving plain row in between each increase}. And finally, increase by 8sts over four rows {4sts per row, leaving plain row in between each increased row}. This increases your sts from 112 to 130. Note to the above increases: space out the increases evenly throughout just the skull side of your work.

Next up are the legs. Decipher the center of your piece. When you have figured this out {front as well as back}, place the 6 center stitches on a piece of yarn. Next place the 59sts after that on a different piece of yarn {I used a different color as well}, and finally, the next 6sts onto a separate piece of yarn, leaving you with 59sts on your needles. Equally divide these sts over your three needles, and now you've separated your legs! 59sts for each leg, and two lots of 6sts in the middle which you will crochet together later. 

Knit one row to ensure your leg is on the round. For the next eight rows, decrease by one stitch on the inseam. 51sts will remain. For the skants I made the stripe pattern by knitting 20 rows of black yarn, 20 rows turquoise, 20 black etc, until I reached a length I was happy with. Don't forget to finish the last 5-7 rows of each leg in a k2, p2 style to ensure the ends don't go curly. 

Finally, graft the middle together working on the inside {I just did simple crochet}, and there you have it! Hook in all loose ends with a crochet hook, et voila. 

Original pattern found on Sharon Watterson's blog, tweaked where necessary by me.