About Hats, Part One

I’ve had a bit of a hat obsession this winter. Maybe it’s because I splurged on coats in 2009, and when you own a bright blue coat and a moss green jacket, you need wonderful hats to wear with them. I had already accessorized the green jacket last fall, so once the Christmas knitting was complete it was time to move on the the blue coat, which has been crying for nearly a year now for fitting accessories.

It seems a new hat pattern appears on Ravelry about every .078 seconds that I think I must knit. But I’ve also pledged to stick to the stash, and finding the right combination was nearly impossible. My gauge was always wrong. Always. Every pattern, every combination, every yarn I tried. Nothing was working, and the stuff that would work just didn’t fit into my color vision. (When you have a bright blue coat, it does not lend itself to a lot of color options).

Then I thought I’d had it. Ripley by Ysolda Teague,  knit in my own merino/tencel handspun:

It should have worked. My gauge was close, and I adjusted. But my goof up was that I was also very close on yardage and was afraid I’d run out, so I made it a bit smaller than I should have to save on yarn. Hats always stretch, right? Nope.

I finished and it was beautiful, but tight. It’ll stretch, I thought. I wore it around the house. I put it on and wore it on the 15 minute ride to playgroup. By the time I arrived I had decided that the hat could double as a torture device. The tencel and my tight spinning meant that the hat would not budge. It was stiff as a board and gave me a headache. This was not going to happen.

I complained bitterly to my friends, that a month had gone by and I was still hatless, sitting here with a beautiful hat and three sons, not who would even consider wearing such a girly hat.

Hours later I was still bitter as we packed up and I couldn’t wear my hat. There was no way I was ripping it, it was too pretty, there had to be someone….and then it hit me as I saw my friend’s daughter putting on a hand knit hat. My friends all had daughters! And one of them did not have a hand knit hat.

I mentioned it to my friend; both of us had been thinking the same thing. The hat was totally meant for her daughter. This is a girl after my own heart. I adore her, my boys adore her and she can keep any one of them in line at the park. Plus she loves historical dress up. And this hat, with it’s cloche style and lace edging is just meant for a sweet and spunky little girl in a cloak and a prairie dress.

And I couldn’t be happier with the match…..