#chiliphilly

Chili Philly Who: Phil Ferguson What: A lad with a thing for crocheting foodstuffs to wear on his head   Backstory: Everyone’s talking about this Melbourne-based wool wunderkind, with thousands of Instagrammers now trailing his every stitch.  

How does a young bloke come to start crocheting? Boredom! I was on holiday in Canberra staying with my sisters four or five years ago and figured I had to do something to fill up my time.

And why food items in particular… to wear on your head? I’ve always made things to wear on my head because I was inspired by the hat Finn wears on the TV show Adventure Time. The food inspiration wasn’t anything I had planned but it’s an easy theme to do and is always the most popular.

Most challenging creation to date? My Burger Hat. I guess it [was] mainly because I hadn’t nailed construction at that point, so figuring out how I was able to create this detailed burger to wear on my head was always going to be a hard task. Though since then, because I have done so many hats, I’m able to finish things in a day or two – unlike the burger, which took months.

Are you still working at a burger shop? I still work at Tuck Shop Take Away. I only work nights though which is how I am able to do things during the day and still work for solid money. Though it’s hard to balance an actual paying job with something which isn’t necessarily giving you an income, it gives you incentive to go hard at what you are doing because you would want to push yourself to succeed when placed out of your comfort zone.

What’s your ultimate knitted headpiece? I’m not sure… a full buffet? I have so many ideas but I’ve gotten into the habit of only wanting to make things in short periods of time. Ultimately, I would want out of all of this a large legacy behind me that I can look back and say I really achieved more than I ever had expected and I was true to myself the whole way.