Flapping away

 V. and I convened at the local coffeehouse of choice/perpetual habit to have a bagel and contemplate earflap hats. Coffee was also involved.

Finger dipping good!

OK, so perhaps she was more about the bagel than the knitting, but I give it a couple years. Then we'll see. (I already have a knitting spool for her, she just doesn't know it yet!)



A rare photo op involving a flower!

This earflap hat - the third in perhaps two and a half days, all the same pattern - is a kind of gray-green that is very... indeterminate. In my dark bedroom, it looked like a deep pine green. In the daylight it was gunmetal. I just don't know anymore. The only thing I really am certain about it that it is done, and just barely!

This time I am wearing pants.

Here I am, modeling in my bathroom again. I know this looks a lot like the pictures I took yesterday, but I swear, it is not. I am just wearing a slightly different earflap and a slightly different sweater. I have a yen for those lightweight merino sweaters that originate at places like The Gap or American Eagle, then get machine washed by some careless undergrad, who then donates them to a thrift store where I swoop down upon them with glee. (I got yet another one in green today, which I have plans to create a scene from Godzilla on in felt. Trust me. It will be fabulous!)

Godzilla wants an earflap hat! (Yes... I am a nerd. Had you any doubt?)

Anyway, this earflap hat also needs blocking. The ties aren't as long as on the other hat because I cut it pretty close near the end - I almost didn't have enough yarn and would have had to set it aside like the first one (7/8 done) until I decided which yarn to use. That is my current strategy, since I'm dealing with handspun yarn. I have no idea how many yards are in each ball, and the balls and the yarns themselves are certainly not uniform. There's a lot of guesswork.

My balls. And a bag of mohair.

For instance, I began with the medium gray-colored ball, featured dead center in the above photo. That made a large 7/8 hat. Then I went to the big ball - that made yesterday's hat, and there was enough left over for me to be a bit confused about what to do with it. Today I tackled the dark ball, to the left, and made a medium hat. That was (as Goldilocks would say) just the right size. The remaining two balls may or may not make a medium hat each since they are a similar size to the dark ball. But one never knows. Plus, I am confounded by the orange ball. If it is not enough for a hat of its own - and I have only two sizes to work with here, medium and large - then I need to figure out a tasteful way to use it with another yarn. And you know I am all about the taste.

Which reminds me, I am blocking the pieces of the funky sweater even as I type this.

Sleeve or psychedelic fish?