Thursday, January 08, 2009

Parade of hats

Somewhere in October I had the thought -
Wouldn't it be fun if I could knit a hat for each of my in-laws? Reality check - that's six hats.

When I had this thought I was finishing up what would be hat #1:
stans cap2
There's a great series of photos while I tried to capture this hat. There was some assistance from a little man. A little man who thought the game was "grab the hat" which resulted in several photos of the floor, sans hat. Here's one out-take below.
stans cap3
The hat is the Jacques Cousteau hat, and if I knit it again I'd use fewer stitches and maybe not run out of the precious handspun that a friend gave me from her grandmother's farm. Knit mostly driving to/from Michigan this summer, this gave me a bit of a headstart on the 6 by Christmas plan.

I quickly moved on to hat #2:
brians cap3
This one was of my own devising, using some yarn from a yarn swap I participated in. Notice a theme here? Hats from stash yarn, maybe?

Knocked that one out in a week and moved on to hat #3:
hat subway
sorry for the blurry photo - we were on the subway
Please not that I am not wearing this hat in my kitchen. I'm wearing it in Manhattan. Which means I have claimed it and it is no longer gift worthy. But there's a sad, sad reason. The same day I cast on for this hat, my beloved Shedir, knit while I was visiting Grenada, was rudely stolen by some nefarious thief at the New Brunswick train station. I miss Shedir, and though this new hat fits perfectly, and was probably meant for me, it lacks the intricacy of the other. (That and grey isn't really my color)

OK, one set back, not to bad. So I cast on for #3, take two.
blue hat
Please not that I am ALSO not wearing this hat in my kitchen. My SON is wearing this hat. Knit from this pattern - a lovely pattern, don't get me wrong, I'll totally knit it again - the pattern is lacking in any mention of guage. So, fine, a beautiful hat for my son. There are worse accidents in the land of knitting.

OK. Two set backs so far, I wanted to knit six hats, and by mid-November I'd made 4, which would have been totally on track had they all been gift-worthy.

Hat #3, take THREE.
kens cap2
Ah ha! This pattern is awesome! Knit sideways using some clever short-row shaping, it was a super duper easy, fast knit, and I think it turned out really well. A bit roomier than intended, but the recipient seemed undeterred.

Hat #4.
I was really tired of hats. And none of the yarn that I had in my stash seemed appropriate for a hat for the recipient I had in mind. Then I remembered the beautiful O-wool that was originally slated to be a pair of socks for mom:
green sock on
And had been sitting in a box since then. Oh, how painful it is to rip 3/4 of a sock, even when you know it is too small for any foot you know (you don't want to know how hard it was to get the sock on for that photo). But rip I did, and the results were scrumptious:
Arboreal Cowl
I never quite understood the cowl craze until I pulled this over my head. But the next time I come into some soft and scrumptious yarn, a cowl for me it will be.

So in the end I didn't get my 6 hats knit, but I did knit 5 hats and a cowl - and everyone I am closely related to has received at least one knit item from me.

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