The Hat that Could Not Be Lost

Let me tell you a wonderful story about the hat that could not be lost.

The protagonist of this story is a lovely hat. The black, squishy, yet washable yarn holds the intricate and simple cables well. It goes with all of my coats and is worn so often there is a ring of foundation around the brim. The extra ribbing covers my ears perfectly and it hugs my head without being to snug or too slouchy. My fellow knitters will understand it to be a Traveling Cable Hat made with black Cascade 220 Superwash yarn. It is four winters old, which is something like 80 in hat years. Aside from the aforementioned ring of foundation, it barely shows its age.

It is a good hat.
It is a hat that knows where it belongs and always find its way home.

About me: I lose a hat a year or just about. They're left in cabs for the most part, though perhaps they fall out of bags, pockets, or the hood of a coat. Not this hat, though. This hat has fallen out of my hood on the subway in a distinct manner so that a fellow New Yorker could see it, and call out to me in time to collect it before the doors closed. It is a special, loyal hat.

Birmingham, Alabama was chilly in January 2019. Expecting weather in the 50s, I almost did not bring this hat with me on my sales call. However, the morning I left New York was cold, so I donned the hat without thinking. I was glad I did. The rental car was chilly at first.

Purse overflowing with not only the usual items, but also my work laptop and folders of presentations, I went to my account's offices to sell some great books. The day grew warm and as I left their offices I tossed the hat on top of my purse and rushed back to the hotel to meet colleagues for dinner. Quickly, I deposited my sales materials into the hotel room and left for dinner. I had wished the hat had come with me as we left the restaurant as it was quite cold that evening. The hat was not in my hotel room when I returned.

Disappointed at losing the hat, I made plans to use a bit of extra time the next day to visit a yarn store in Birmingham and to knit a new favorite hat on the way home. I opened the passenger side door to place my (still overflowing) purse on the seat and was greeted by the hat!
"What's new?" it seemed to say.
Delighted to be reunited, we went to breakfast (and still to the yarn store because, well, now I wanted to knit another hat anyway!).

All day we traveled together. We had tea at Starbucks and meandered to the airport together, waiting for our flight. We walked almost a mile from the gate to the taxi stand at Laguardia together. The cab was warm and after spending so much time together, we needed our space so I left it reconnect with the (still) overflowing purse.

The next morning I went looking for the hat. It was perfect weather for this hat and the coat I was planning on wearing gets along so well with this hat. Yet, I could not find this hat. With disappointment, I put another hat on my head and left for work.

The day was busy, but I thought about where I could find more Cascade 220 and when I'd be able to manage that during the weekend. It was a good hat. It needed to be re-made.

My husband will not have even 1 beer before getting into the driver's seat of a car, so I suggested we take a Lyft to and from dinner. He agreed. Beer and a plan in place to re-make the hat allowed me to relax enough to forget about the hat.

Forget about it I did. Until we arrived home. The Lyft driver stopped the car. I got out and spotted something on the black road.
Could it be?
Yes! It was!

Lying there on the road. Soppy, soggy, and sad, but happy to be found! My hat!
Happy to be brought inside the nice, warm apartment to dry out and rest after prolonged adventures. Waiting to be washed so it can take its rightful place on my head once again.

Why Is Making By Hand Important to You?

This seems to be the year of re-discovering my knitidentity. I've been answering these questions of for whom, what, where, when, and how do I knit almost instinctively this year. I am usually the kind of person who does things first and figures out why afterward, so it makes sense to me that I would dig into this now, 10 years after I started falling in love with this craft.

When I saw that Melanie Fallick was writing a book on making things by hand and wanted quotes for the book (see her blog post here) it made me stop and think.

Why is making things by hand so important to me? It's never been something I asked myself. Growing up I was attracted to art. I colored, I drew, I made latch hook rug things. My father's mother used to collect shells or coral (before we really knew that it was a bad thing to take coral from its natural environment) and she'd bring these back to us when we were little. I don't quite know how or why it started, but we began to color the shells with markers. My father's sister used to create pottery (we had her wheel for quite a while. I always kind of was hoping to get to use it but didn't get a chance to before my parents did something with it), and my grandmother used to love to draw.

But I suspect my mother's side is more where the compelling drive to work with my hands comes from. My mom dabbles in many fiber crafts, but hasn't really gotten obsessed with any the way I have. My grandfather worked in textile mills in Massachussets (In Lowell? Near Lowell?) before going to the Korean War and then school on the GI bill. My grandmother, though, has always seemed to me to be an expert in all fiber arts. She knits, embroiders, sews, weaves, and crewells as well (those kits are HARD to find these days!). So I've not only had an example of handmade around my whole life, but I've always had some sort of creative influence flowing through me as well.

I make things with my hands because I need to. Making with my hands is, I would say, such a part of me that it almost defines who I am.

I am a doer.
I am a creator.
I am a maker.

I'm not honestly sure what I would do with my hands if they weren't working on a project. As it is, when I'm at work or driving anywhere I pick at my fingers, the nail (unless they're painted), the cuticle, the skin around them. I destroy my fingers when they aren't otherwise busy. They sometimes bleed and get painful.



TL:DR: I make things with my hands to prevent auto-canibalization.

The Christmas Challenge

My brother issued a challenge. He might have even said the words "you can't make that." But of course I can make that! I am a fearless knitter! The hat in question is the reindeer hat from Home Alone. I went right to the internet to refresh my memory of the hat. I haven't seen the film in quite some time. I found this image using a Google search.

I made a few assumptions based on this image.

1. there seem to be about 6 reindeer on the hat altogether
2. it's a rather loose gauge
3. there's no ribbed cuff

I cast on with size 5 needles and went for it. And it's huge. You could fit two of his heads in there. So back to the drawing board. Maybe it's tighter than I'd originally thought. The cuff looks a little smaller than I'd worked. Maybe there's only 4, or 5 repeats of the reindeer pattern. What do you think? I'm going to give it another go. Size 4 instead of 5s. And I'm going to eliminate at least one reindeer from the pattern. Think I can make it by Christmas?

There's An App For That

I got my first iPad in the summer of 2010. You may or may not know that I work in the publishing industry. I told myself it was research for my job because we'd be selling more ebooks and I wanted to know what the environment was like. That made for an awesome excuse. Now, I'm on the iPad 3 and I really just love it. I read on it almost every day I read a few magazines on it (Martha Stewart Living is actually one of my favorites!), play some games and knit with it. Yup. That's right. I knit with it. Since I knit with it so often, I thought I might let you in on the apps I've used and which ones I like best for knitting. All of these apps are available for iOS devices, but if you have an Android device, I think some of them are available for those as well. I know Dropbox is at least.


ibooks - Free! - I almost exclusively read books on my iPad now. I'll only really ever get a physical book if there is no ebook available. That means that often, my knitting books are pbooks instead of ebooks. I've found this is a great way to hide my book stash from my boyfriend. However, I've also found that when reading pbooks, I tend to try to highlight words I don't know to define them. That functionality really doesn't work as well in a pbook, by the way.
I actually haven't been using iBooks for pdfs of patterns at all. I will use it for pdf ebooks like Ysolda's Little Red in the City. I can highlight and add notes to things I find important and keep bookmarks of things, but for patterns, I find there are other apps that have better tools to help knitters.


Goodreader - 4.99 - You can get a free version of this app, but trust me, the $5 you spend on this app are WELL worth it! It's best for pdf files, I have had some trouble with using word files. Why is it awesome though? Do you knit shawls? You do? BAM! make a line and drag the line up the chart. You know exactly what row you're on and what to do on it. Add a note to let yourself know how many times you've done that repeat of the pattern. I'll bet that sweater you're working on has multiple sizes right? Highlight the instructions for the one size you want to knit. You can add arrows to point towards directions in written patterns to let you know where you left off. It's pretty sweet. You can transfer patterns onto Goodreader from your computer if your device is connected, or over wifi. You can synch Goodreader with your Ravelry queue (via the instructions here). Or you can import the files from a cloud service.


Dropbox - Free! - Dropbox is definitely my cloud service of choice. They start you off with a certain amount of space, but every time you refer a friend to their website and that friend joins up, you both get more space. I put music, photos, patterns and all sorts of stuff on there. If I want to share anything, I can send a link to someone so they can access just that one file. You can also use it to review patterns and things like that, but it doesn't have all that functionality of Goodreader, so it's good for reference, but not so great at keeping track of where you are in a pattern.

Knit-N-Count - $2.99 - I've used a few different counters. For a while, I was using the StitchMinder app to count rows. But when I started using two counters of the four counters StitchMinder provides to you for one project, I thought that might not work for the long haul. In Knit-N-Count, I can name projects, keep notes on them if I want (I've actually copied in a whole pattern for a simple sock before and used that instead of goodreader), all in addition to the counter. This counter is actually quite sophisticated for a counter. You can set alarm rows, repeat rows, pattern repeats and it'll keep track of your total row count as you're doing all of that. Make a mistake or accidentally press the row button one too many times? No problem, hit the frog button and the counter goes back a row AND makes a "ribbit" noise!

Those are the key apps I use to knit with on my iPad. I also read Vogue Knitting on my ipad (from the Newsstand) and if I want to grab an Interweave magazine, I'll nab it off their website so I can import it to Goodreader if there's a pattern I want to use. You can get IK from the Zinio Magazine app, but it's not a pdf, and oftentimes they're slow in adding things to Zinio.

I used to make a copy of a pattern from a book so I wouldn't have to lug the whole book around with me. I'd put it in a sheet protector, and when I was done with it, I'd stick it in a binder. Now, I scan the document into my computer, pull all the pdfs into one document and load it up into Goodreader. There are some books that doesn't quite work for. I bought Cookie A's Knit Sock Love and the size of the book made it quite difficult to scan the pattern in from my home scanner (with legal sized glass) as well as work's scanner (more like a tabloid sized glass). I ended up typing the pattern up in word and bringing it into Goodreader like that (which is how I know you can't really edit any word documents in Goodreader). I'm not sure what I would do if I needed to do something similar for any of her other patterns that are more complicated or included a chart. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

BEA 2012

There were significantly less printed catalogs this year at Book Expo America, however, the whole show was much more upbeat than I've seen in quite a few years. Digital strategies were abundant and it seemed that despite the impending DoJ lawsuit against key publishers on handling ebook pricing, I dare say, I sensed hope.

The print books on the horizon for knitters were fewer in number than past years, but it seems as though the quality of them might have gone up a bit.

RANDOM HOUSE - Potter Craft

Boyfriend Sweaters: 19 Designs for Him That You'll Want to Wear
$21.99 | December 2012 | Hardcover and Ebook
Bruce Weinstein with photos by Jared Flood

On the catalog page for this book is a hounds-tooth sweater that I've fall in love with. So, the title, at least, is accurate! The description even says that the patterns in the book explain how to modify the sweaters for a more feminine shape. Honestly, the book is probably worth getting for those tips alone!



ABRAMS - STC Craft

Comfort Knitting & Crochet: Babies & Toddlers
$19.95 | October 2012 | Paperback
Norah Gaughan & The Berroco Design Team

I don't need to tell you I have a long-term knit crush on Norah Gaughan. I might need to tell you that I've reached that point in life where just as many of my friends are getting married as are having children right now. This has lead me to need to knit more baby stuff than ever before. I can already count 2-3 babies in my life that don't have hand-knits from me (the same!). All the patterns in this book, as you can imagine are knitted with Berroco's yarns. I find their yarns both affordable and of decent quality. There are pastel patterns in here to be sure, but there are also some bright colors, which is much more my baby knitting speed. Already I can see a bib with an octagonal shape that I'm just going to need to knit, and a blanket with half circles that looks to be a blast! With 50 patterns in the book, there's bound to be something for every baby.

Knitting From the Center Out
$27.50 | November 2012 | Hardcover
Daniel Yuhas

While I've never heard of this designer, his bio says that he's been published in Interweave, Knitty, Knitcircus and a few books. All of the patterns in this book are knit, as the title suggests, from the center out. That, however, doesn't mean all the patterns are shawls. There are some, to be sure, but there are also socks, pullovers, hoodies, hats and blankets. The hoodie on the catalog page is imminently knitable, with stunning seams. Of all the books I've seen, this is the one I'm most excited about. Too bad I'll have to wait until November to pick it up!

ABRAMS - V & A Publishing

Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft
$60.00 | October 2012 | Hardcover
Sandy Black

When KnitKnit: Profiles + Projects from Knitting's New Wave came out several years ago, I was interested in it, but it seemed to chronicle more knitters qua artists than knitters qua crafters. I'm somewhat interested in knitting as an art, but I can relate more to knitting as a craft. Knitting explores more of the craft and industry side of knitting through spectacular photographs. From its beginning as a hand-craft, to its progression as a computer controlled process and including everything from everyday wear to haute couture, this book documents it all. The $60 price point makes this one a book I probably won't buy for myself, but I would for a friend as a gift. To close friends and family reading this: hint hint!

Muslin
$55.00 | October 2012 | Hardcover
Sonia Ashmore

Some of us might think of Muslin as that cheap fabric we use as a test for how a garment might turn out. In-fact, "muslin" is used as a noun not only for that fabric, but also for the test garment made out of that fabric. The fabric, however, has even been used to clothe royalty. I'm super fascinated about the role this fabric has had in developing contemporary fashion and can't wait for its release!



Kaffe Fassett: Dreaming In Color
$40.00 | September 2012 | Hardcover
Kaffe Fassett

While I'm not interested in knitting many of his knitting patterns, I completely appreciate Kaffe Fassett for his adoration and use of color. This autobiography seems a little different than most other autobiographies I've seen in that it includes vivid photographs and unprecedented color. I am incredibly fascinated in Kaffe Fasset's life and what drove him to use so much color.




INTERWEAVE

November Knits
$24.95 | October 2012 | Paperback
Kate Gagnon Osborne & Courtney Kelley

Interweave's catalog doesn't have as many images of the patterns in each book. The cover pattern is mostly all there is to go by. This book is divided into 3 parts: Farm Hands (described as "rustic, casual and durable garments"), Ivy League (described as "smart knitwear with bold colors and classic styling"), and Southern Comfort (described as "bringing warmth and comfort to slightly dressier garments"). Knowing Interweave, the 20 patterns in this book will be classically elegant. I'll have to see more about this book in order to determine if I really want to buy it, but it sounds like it would resonate quite well with my New England roots.

Finish-Free Knits
$24.95 | December 2012 | Paperback
Kristen TenDyke

Whose got two thumbs and hates seaming? THIS GIRL. Accordingly, I'm quite excited about this title. While I know quite a bit about altering patterns from knitting flat to knitting in the round, there are quite a few things about not finishing garments I don't know. While I might not be sure about the patterns, I'll probably pick this book up for the instruction alone.

Knitting On the Go

I travel a lot. My family lives 4 hours away and I visit them frequently. I used to have a job where I traveled quite a bit for work on planes. My boyfriend and I try to take a vacation once a year. It's great to have time off from work and I actually really enjoy business trips due to the amount of knitting I tend to get done.

I've got packing clothes down to a science, but what about keeping myself occupied? I've got some practice planning travelling knitting projects too.

I have a few posts drafted to include tips on how to plan, pick and pack your knitting for maximum travel fun and minimum knitting tragedy. I'll focus on what to think about before you start travelling, how your destination and type of trip could impact your knitting, and some handy knitting gadgets that come in handy on the go and everyday items that can be used in a pinch in case you're in a spot where you can't find something to help you. These posts will be bolstered by some helpful resources to help you in your planning as well.


Personally, for trips where I know I'm going to have a lot of time to knit (and relaxing ones that I'm super excited to go on!) I start thinking about what project I'm going to take with me about a week before I go. I'm the kind of person who literally packs clothing the day before I need to leave (sometimes only HOURS before she needs to leave!), so the fact that I think about knitting this far in advance, and make it part of my excitement for a trip is telling, I think. Here are some ideas for preparing that go from extreme, to throw-all-the-yarn-i-own-that-can-fit-in-the-bag-in-the-bag. Just some thoughts I came up with, I'll let you in on my own process later...

• Figure out your rate of knitting. Start about a month before you depart. Knit something small and simple like the leg of a sock or a handwarmer, maybe even a sleeve. Time yourself to see how long it takes you to knit and figure out your time per stitch ratio (Take the # of stitches in a round or a row and multiply that by the number of rows you knit for the total number of stitches you knit and then take the time in minutes it took you to knit all those stitches and divide it by the total number of stitches). Now you can take the amount of time you'll spend travelling and multiply it by your rate of knitting to find out how many stitches you'll be able to knit in transit. Ideally, if you're not intending to knit at your destination, this should be higher than the number of stitches you need to complete a WIP if you choose to bring one. This calculation gives you a realistic picture of how much you can accomplish, which can be rather helpful. Who wants to over-pack knitting that they won't get to? If I actually ever did this calculation, it would probably decrease the anxiety I have over whether I need to bring that 5th project with me or not...
• Map out the nearest yarn stores. Every time I travel somewhere new, and sometimes even when I travel to visit my parents, I hop onto knitmap.com and search for yarn stores near my destination. Write them down! Yes! Even the Holly Hobby or the Michaels! You'll never know when you might have an emergency! I've definitely stopped at a Holly Hobby in Bentonville, AR because I needed a darning needle to finish a sock. What if a dastardly TSA employee hates knitters and takes your needles? What if you didn't calculate your rate of knitting and ran out of projects before it's time to go home!? Know before you go! This can also be helpful to recalculate yourself after a whole day with either your family,or an in-law's family or a business meeting that just didn't go the way you wanted it to.
• Jot down some yardages/weights of yarn for projects you are interested in. In today's smartphone world, sometimes we think that cell service is omnipresent. Sometimes we think our own service provider is everywhere. I was recently up in New Hampshire and it seems as though my carrier did not get along with the mountains as well as I did. Sure, I could have asked the shopkeep to check out my Ravelry page and let me know how much yardage I'd need of something, but when you're just browsing and aren't sure, you might not want to talk to the salesperson right away. This is also a helpful strategy in the event that your significant non-knitting other is only allowing you so much time in the Sheep Shrine or when you'd feel awkward making them wait (which is more my case). Jotting down yardages can be an efficient and quick way to get the souvenir yarn you want while saving the relationship with the one you love. :)
• At the very least, take a sock or shawl. Those kinds of projects are easily transportable, compact, and take a sufficient amount of time to knit so that if you start them on the plane, depending on where you're going, you should at least be able to tide you over until you can get to a yarn store at your destination.

Until the next post on Tailoring Your Knitting to Your Destination, check out these projects that I've knit while traveling with varying degrees of success.

Is all knitting so touchy feely?

I was poking around Amazon this afternoon and found the book Knit in Comfort. I started thinking to myself: why do I see so many novels about women finding themselves through knitting? I thought, why don't I write the less dramatic book about a woman finding her friends through knitting. Then I realized what I was saying.

I'm that woman.

I moved to the city, started reading all the time and realized I was only living in my head. To get out of my head, I taught myself how to knit, and I started finding knitting groups to be social. I met friends, awesome friends that I've had for a while now. I had some awesome experiences (remember the yarn bus, the first Rhinebeck experience, and moving the stash to Stan's?).

Looks like knitting is a life changer after all. Even if it isn't as touchy feely as all those novels make it seem.

I wonder if a non-touchy feely knitting life changing book would sell. Probably not. I'll bet a book that describes the intersection of dating and knitting would be hilarious and sell quite well though. Call it "When to Flash Your Stash."

Taking Bets...

I just started Illanna's baby's shower gift today. Who thinks I can finish by the time the car service comes to pick me up on Saturday?

I can't tell you what it is besides the fact that it's not a blanket and I don't really like knitting baby clothes since kids grow so quickly. I know Illanna's out there possibly even reading this blog. Also, it's knit out of this:

I'm a Lab Rat!

It's been a really long week, despite the fact that it has been a "short" week. Because I don't have enough going on in life (aheh), I thought I'd sign up for a knitting/creativity study at NYU. It seems like fun anyway. If you're interested in doing it, here are the details:

As part of her research on creativity, Prof. Anne Laure Sellier (NYU) is running a Creativity Project with advanced knitters at the Purl yarn store in Soho. If you can knit, purl, do stockinette, seed stitch, increases / decreases, and create cables, and you are NOT color-blind, you can take part in this study.
The study will be run until March 9. It involves you coming to Purl for 15 minutes to get yarn and needles that we provide you with. With our selection of yarn and needles, we'll ask you to create a scarf in a week's time. At the end of the week, you will be asked to come to our lab at NYU (West 4th street), to present your work, and fill out a questionnaire.

Participants receive a $20 gift certificate to get yarn from Purl once they have complete the study!!!

If you are willing to take part in the study, please directly contact Chiara Longoni who supervises the study. Her e-mail is cl1388@nyu.edu.

We hope to see you soon!
The Creativity Study


My question to you is, if I get a $20 gift certificate to Purl, can I use it on sock yarn, or does that go against the stash busting mode I'm in?

Randomness

I've had a rather random week...so you end up with a random pictureless post.

• Knitted Rings: Someone gave me the Knitting Pattern A Day Calendar for Christmas. It was a very nice gift, I just wish that the calendar didn't use two days per pattern. It kind of kills it for me. A lot of the big patterns are things that are kind of too suburban for me and just not my style, but I have found some decent patterns so far. I dogear them and then I'll take them out and throw the rest away after the year's over. Well, this week (or maybe last week, since I was away from my office for a couple days I didn't keep up with it as well as I normally do) I saw a pattern for knitted rings. Like, for your fingers. Very novel. there were buttons on them. This seems like an AWESOME stash busting idea. So, you get a Tangled Yoke Cardigan done and you have an extra button? Voila, matching ring!


• The Joy of Knitting Tattoos: I was at a luncheon today with a bunch of people in the publishing industry that I didn't know. I was sitting next to a delightful woman from the New York Times (I have no idea what division, more than likely the advertising one since it was a publishing advertising luncheon) who upon noticing my tattoo asked if I knit. I said I do, and she and another person from another company and I started talking about knitting, Ravelry, Flickr all of it. It was awesome and a great way to break the ice!


• I finally got some moo cards of my own!


• I'm knitting a really adorable frog for a friend's birthday. She found the pattern on etsy. If you're on ravelry, I just added it to my projects, you can click on it through there to find the pattern. It's my first time using Manos del Uruguay. I love the acid green color and I really like the way it's knitting up. It's kinda inspiring me to knit a pair of mittens out of it.


• I finished one of the Cat Bordhi Sky Master Noro Socks. I kinda feel like it's a little too small, but hopefully that won't be a big deal. Also, I ended in the same color I began, so maybe this pair will match! I'll get a photo of the first one soon.


• Also, I almost forgot! Smitten w/Knittin snagged me my sock yarn that I ordered from Annie's! They sold my first order which is pretty upsetting, but at least they more often than not have what I'm looking for when I go there, which is more than I can say for some other knitting stores... Sorry to be snarky, I'm just quite upset about a few things my old favorite LYS has been doing/done recently. That sock yarn will be used for the Over the Knee Stockings take two.


• Also, also, Smittin w/Knittin and I are thinking of knitting exclusively socks and seeing who can knit the most socks between the beginning of July and the end of August. It might be a bit unfair given that I have a lot of travelling planned for those months which is prime knitting time (not to mention Burning Man 08 which is just like a massive time to knit like no other provided I pick up some bamboo cotton yarn). Just curious. If you were going to do something like this, would you set any ground rules, and if so, what would they be?

Well, that's just about all we've got here chez PassionKNITly.

What do you kids think of this?

That's just about the size i want it to be. It's small enough to be covered by my watch, which is important cause it'll be on my wrist.