Vegetables, yarn, and yarns: all of my passions all in one place.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Return of the Hat

In my universe, there are essentially two ways to comfort someone who is going through a rough time: wool or baked goods. That's why when my coworker's father passed away earlier last week, my first inclination was to knit her something. Admittedly, I might have thought of baking cookies first, but she's gluten free and I've been out of rice flour since late 2010 I do believe.

When those around a knitter suffer sorrow, it is a common practice for said knitter (or knitters) to create a prayer shawl. This shawl could then be used to drape the exposed shoulders for the grieved or serve as a lap blanket as the depressed rest on the couch, just not ready to move yet. In addition, as the shawl becomes knit into existence, the knitter encloses a prayer of well-being into each stitch.

I'm not big into prayer for prayer's sake. I don't think of myself as a prayer. Though I do wish for things for myself and others (happiness, health, good fortune, strength, life), I never ask a deity to bestow these things and when I have at any point in the past, I have felt like a fraud doing it. For this reason, I'm not sure the prayer shawl is the way for me to go, now or in the future. However, there is one thing I do know about this particular co-worker. She is a fan of the hat in all its forms.

The solution seemed obvious. She needed a hat. I had a single skein of caron paints in the Oceana colorway and a near-memorized and decidedly familiar beanie pattern at my disposal, as well as the gift of time in the form of two lengthy car rides to and from a business trip on thursday afternoon and friday evening.

By friday night, I had finished the bind off, and the hat was finished.


I adapted the pattern to make the decreases look "prettier" than in the original. This worked, though it also created a slightly more squarish shape in the hat itself. This boxiness does not show up when the hat is on a head.

I completed a second hat too in the last week, but this second one you'll have to wait to see. It's a gift that I'll post as soon as it reaches its owner. In other Christmas knitting news, I may have a plan of attack for that Michigan stained glass afghan that adapts the Mason Dixon Knitting Moderne Log Cabin Blanket. I'll keep you posted.

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