FO's: Weird Hats for Boys

Okay, my final Xmas gift post and then I'm moving on.  I'm ready even though it is fun to present finished objects. And this one, too, has a background story.  

Like I always do, I took my knitting out to the field with me.  This year, I had some fellow fiber lovers out there with me which was fun.  'J', our sawyer, crocheted and he could often be found at night sitting in the truck, listening to bluegrass and making cool hats.  'S' was a knitter (a good one) and once she found out I knitted, she brought projects out to the field (but somehow she had never heard of Ravelry so you can bet I fixed that!).  And then there was 'A', the graduate student.  She wasn't a knitter but wanted to become one...because I've told her the benefits of knitting related to stress so many times!  So instead of knitting myself, I taught her.  2 scarves and 1 shawl later I think we can call that a success!

Somehow, over the course of the summer, every single technician asked me to knit them a hat.  I'm not really sure how it evolved but I think they thought that would be easy for me to do.  Never mind that I worked every day for all daylight hours and some non-daylight hours and never mind that I never got a day off so couldn't just pop to a yarn store to pick up yarn for these requests.  It wasn't going to happen.  Instead I gave them other things to keep their spirits up and to let them know they were doing a good job.  S got a skein of yarn, J and M both got some books since they were avid readers...if I were in town, I'd pick up cold beverages for everyone...and lots of meals. In a field situation like the one we were in, these kinds of things go a long way to making people happy. 

However, one of them somehow wrangled a hat out of me.  'M' was a good but strange kid (I call him a kid since he was early 20's...how old am I?) and we got along well.  We had very similar tastes in books (I introduced him to Tom Robbins, Edward Abby, and John Irving and he introduced me to Haruki Murakami) but not music.  He loved electronic 'elevator music' (that is my description, not his...I can't even describe this 'music'), Phish, and Ween.  And over the 4 months we were out there, he was determined to get me (well everyone really) to like some of his stuff.  In the end, I did find a couple bands, a few Phish songs, and a few Ween songs that I liked.  Also relevant to this story is that M decided he wanted to carve spoons over the summer.  So he picked up a carver on a day off, J cut him some alder pieces, and he went to town carving.  You could always tell where M had camped because there were little alder shavings everywhere. 

I'm getting to the point, really.  The first spoon that M carved he gave to his mom.  I mean how awesome is that?  The next, and last spoon, he gave to me at the end of the field season.  For a beginner, I think he did a good job with it.  It's functional which is what he was striving for, and I've used it a few times. 

So when he asked for a hat again, how could I not?  We talked about what he wanted and it took some knitted/ripping/re-knitting etc to make his specifications work.  I have to admit a couple times I almost decided that this was not worth my time but then thought 'the boy carved me a spoon...I can knit him the darn hat'.  This project is far from perfect because I was relearning colorwork and made some bad yarn choices but I let those imperfections go.  It says Roses Are Free...which is somehow Phish related and seems to tickle M whenever he says it...means nothing to me!  It was a hit...apparently he is wearing it daily.  

In the meantime, I had been struggling to come up with a gift for my friend's husband during this time.  I knit him a hat long ago that he loved but it is starting to show wear so finally had a moment of epiphany as I was knitting on M's hat.  Rob, like 'M', loves Ween.  So I found out his favorite album of theirs and knit it onto the hat (it says Chocolate & Cheese)...a different style that fits Rob more.  It was also a hit!

Not only well-received Xmas gifts, these satisfy my second challenge I had with Jacey last year...first was to knit dishcloths other than the ballband (I knit 4 of them) and the second was to do a colorwork project.  Now, this wasn't a hard design, but it was tricky since the floats had to be long in some cases and apparently my 'wrapping' wasn't perfect (this is what you are seeing showing through between the letters).  My technique needs a bit of work but I'm thinking on a normal design, I would be better.  I plan to test this theory soon!

Okay, January was about a parade of FO's, maybe February will be a parade of field posts.  We'll see!
 
Have a good week everybody.
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Now playing:  Mutilated Lips by Ween (I can't explain why I like this disturbing song but I just do...) 

 
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