The knitter behind the curtain

Pay no attention to her - she's not actually knitting anything so much as weaving entertaining yarn tales to distract you from the lack of knitting progress.

A few months ago, I knit my first colorwork hat, from an old yard sale pattern book uncovered by my knitterly friend and coworker, Awesome Meredith. I enjoyed the pattern so much that I knit it two and a half times. The first time, in brown, I bunged up the decreases, then abandoned it for a while. Then I reknit it in green, and it turned out quite nicely. Then I revisited the brown version and finished it up months later. Full story here and here.

Both versions were knit with the same type of yarn and on the same size needles. With very different results. The brown one is a good three inches wider than the green one. I thought this would be totally fine, as I am a large-headed lady. (Seriously, "one size fits all" hats just don't fit on my head. And sometimes I can't pull tight-fitting turtlenecks over my head without hearing popping sounds at the seams.) Even given the enormity of my head, the brown hat is simply way too big for me.

So I've been hoping I could give the brown hat away, but after a few unsuccessful attempts I'm pretty sure there are few melons mightier than my own. Imagine my joy when a friend nicknamed "Big Jay" came over last night and complained that it was cold AND he'd forgotten his hat. Dude!

I almost injured myself in my eagerness to grab the brown hat from the ungifted FO basket, fully expecting that someone with Big in their nickname should have a truly enormous head. But guess what? Still too big. Sigh. I see felting or frogging in this hat's future.

In other news, my ladies and I went to the Bazaar Bizarre yesterday for last-minute gift shopping (so awesome - if there's one in your city you should absolutely go).

I spotted this kit there at a table full of gorgeous yarn. The kit had been featured in Bust magazine as a cool gift for a crafty lady, and I was lusting in a powerful way. But I resisted ordering it. I resisted again and again yesterday at the Bazaar. Resisting was no doubt made more difficult by the number of times I walked past it. And the come hither looks I swear it kept throwing my way.

As we were leaving the Bazaar, my friend Megan said "I bought you something, but I'm afraid to give it to you. If I give it to you, we won't see you for the next two weeks."

Then she handed me a delightfully squashy rectangular box. The box that contained three colors of roving, a spindle and instructions on SPINNING YOUR OWN YARN. The box that was an official acknowledgment that my fiber obsession has gone to a whole new level.

When I told the boyfriend about it gleefully, he just gave Megan a very disappointed look and said "You're her friend. You're supposed to be HELPING her with her problem." Hee.