The pattern for the hat I’m knitting for my husband comes from an unlikely source – at least of patterns for grown men. It’s from the over-the-top-adorable Itty Bitty Hats. I checked it out from the library and I plan to make several of these ubercute hats for baby gifts. The hat I’m sizing up for L. is the Stars hat. I fell for it because I love the boxy top formed by turning the hat inside out, dividing the stitches in half and doing a three needle bind off. For the entire hat, you just knit a tube – perfect mindless knitting, in the car, in meetings, at gymnastics practice. Alas, for L. I’ll be leaving off the tassels and appliques, but I think he’ll like it anyway.
I have rarely knitted anything for my husband. He’s sweet, but male, with a tendency to pickiness and an uncanny ability to say things about my knitting that are completely innocent and devoid of malicious intent, but nevertheless hurt my feelings. We have been married for 19 years and 312 days (oops, it’s a leap year, 19 years and 313 days), which I attribute in large part to a truly horrible sweater I did not knit for him. Actually it was not the sweater that was so awful, it was just a cabled men’s pullover from a late ’80’s Vogue Knitting, but the yarn I chose. I got it from my then LYS and after a ten year break, my now LYS. They have a wide selection of cone mill ends as well as regular yarn and I chose a coned yarn in a gentle brown heather. I suppose I liked the color and thought the sweater ought to be made from wool and I was definitely on a budget, so the quantity of yarn I got for the price was attractive. But the yarn itself…
I have no idea of the provenance of this yarn, though I suspect it came from the Guard Hair Wool Company. It’s full of VM, stiff hairs, scratchy as heck. The intended sweater recipient is picky about wool items and this would have sent him over the edge. It is not nice wool. I’m not even sure it’s all wool; it felts like crap.
That sweater? I never got further than the swatch. I started grad school, the knitting languished for a few years and when I took it back up, fortunately, I had learned enough about yarn to make better choices. I still have the yarn in the stash, tons of it, done up in neat yarn cakes by the store. I thought maybe I could make a bunch of felted French market bags with it for teacher gifts, if my hands could survive the knitting up. I thought felting would soften its character, so to speak. My swatches did felt, but it took forever and the results were not so pleasing. I haven’t given up on felting as a way to torture this yarn into submission; I just need to do more swatching and experimenting – I’m thinking felted bowls or boxes, a la Mason-Dixon Knitting or One Skein.
At any rate, the hat I’m working on is much nicer yarn. Before I started with the Dalegarn Falk, I had him try on the Beret Gaufre I made for myself and he ended up wearing it all evening at the computer, so I am confident that the hat will be worn. I need to make a few inches longer then I’ll be ready for the three needle bind off. I love three needle bind off – so clever!
