All hats, all the time

I am on a total hat kick. Why? They're fast, compact, you can knit a crazy ass pattern and you only have to do it once... so many reasons.

First was the Koolhaas hat by Jared Flood. This is an awesome pattern and I've been wanting to do it for ages, but the twisted cable stitches was too much for my brain and I didn't really give it a chance. Then I googled "cabling without a cable needle" and tripped across this YouTube video which made it a piece of cake. And I made it out of Sublime Cashmerino Aran which I got at the Purple Purl's inventory sale for the ridiculously low price of $2 a boll. The stuff is gorgeous. (Mental note not to knit anything other than stockinette in black ever again due to my ancient and crappy eyesight. Torture.)


Then I knit Adrian Bazilia's genius hat We Call Them Pirates. The only tough part about this is the fact that the chart is in reverse - the white squares are knit in black and the black are knit in white. Otherwise, simple fairisle and super impressive! (I tried knitting the mittens before but I only knit one. There's a reason I knit my socks two at a a time.) This I made out of Louet Gems sportweight and I remember why I love this yearn so much. Sproingy, well twisted, super soft. And it comes in great colours. I knit the inside band in green just for fun :)

And lastly, another Jared Flood: the Beaumont Beanie (the beanie version in the tam colours, but red and gray, not red and white. I thought the contrast would be better a bit more muted but I may have been wrong.) I'm actually using the yarn called for in the pattern (Classic Elite Fresco), which is a wool/angora blend and sheds bits of fluff up my nose occasionally. I am only a few inches in and still find this rather charming.

This pattern is kicking my ass. In the first two inches or so I've had to rip back three time, the last time all the way to the ribbing. Apparently not only can I not count very well, although I have consistently demonstrated my superiour reading skills I cannot identify that "MC" obviously stands for Main Colour, and that would be the gray, not the red. I tell ya, it made a lot more sense when I figured that out. Riiiiiiiiiip.

Pictures of the last two to follow. My computer is acting like it's a hundred and two and keeps having aneurysms, strokes and other non-productive brain anomalies.

As for my "relationship" I'm currently involved in a battle of wills with myself (yes, another) not to text dude. He's a man and thus a the master of non-communication, but the text balance is falling too heavily on my side so I'm seeing if I can give it a rest, and whether he might pick up the slack. Needless to say I'm not really holding my breath, either for him to do said picking up of the slack, or for me to have the will to resist much longer.

Step off the ledge, my friend, at least for a few days. Auntie Flo is standing right behind you ready to give you a big push.

Of moths and miscreants

When Miko's car finally gave up the ghost, she bequeathed it to her mechanic for the low low sum of zero dollars. The only thing she walked away with was her roof rack. One might wonder at the wisdom of her selection seeing as she no longer owned a car, but hey. Hope springs eternal.

One of the less than lovely qualities of that roof rack was that it was slightly too large for her compact car. In fact, slightly too large for any compact car and, I suspect, many midsize vehicles. The ends of the bars protuded menacingly from the sides of the car. There were more than a few victims of the head bashing implements, despite her tendency to scream: "watch your head!" when anyone exited the car. As a result, a few of us got together and knit her some roof rack cozies for the ends of the bars, the purpose of which was to make them more visible and possibly to cushion the blow when it met its mark. (Anyone familiar with the installation of roof racks knows they are located in the opening of the doors - right where you head enters and exits at maximum velocity.)

Anyway, now that my kids are bigger and I no longer need to pack the entire contents of the house, I decided this year not to rent a minivan for the pilgrimage to the cottage and rather put my roof carrier on my car - for which I need a roof rack. Since Miko no longer needs hers, she let me borrow it. I got it half installed, only to discover one bar is missing the bits that actually attach it to the car. (We shall not discuss how long I stood in the driveway fiddling and contemplating before I came to this realization.) So since I couldnit put the other bar on, I decided to tidy up the cozies.

These cosies are NASTY. Before the car died they were at the mercy of the elements for a good while. Since then, they have been sitting in her basement for...at least a year, I think. The cozies are made of wool. I could explain, but I give you a visual instead:


On a technical note, I was interested (but unsurprised) to see the blue and pink - both kool-aid dyed, had faded significantly, where the purple, dyed with acid dyes, was almost unaffected. The moths liked the purple one best. The pink is Paton's merino, the blue is chunky BFL and the purple is.... I don't know. Maybe BFL? Maybe corridale? Can't remember.
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And just for entertainment purposes...

I was supposed to meet the mushy hotel dude at noon on Saturday for a drink. Just before, I check and I see he's online. Now he lives at the border between Toronto and Mississauga, so I knew something was not right. I emailed him to ask if we were still on and if so did he plan on teleporting there, and he says "24 hours and counting". Yep, dude said he got the day wrong and thought it was on Sunday. Deeply apologetic, blah blah blah.

Fast forward to this morning, I check my email and he suddenly has to go out of town on business and can't meet up. Deeply apologetic, blah blah blah.

Sound familiar? Sigh.