Here’s a hat that’s a year overdue. Last Fall, my work sent me to Poland to work on a Habitat for Humanity project in Gdansk. While there, I churned out some simple head coverings for two of the women working for the local affiliate, a manly birthday cap and one for a special Cana(r)dian friend.

Grady, a coworker and my roommate there, wanted a hat of his own. I didn’t want to just make any old thing for him, but I didn’t know what I did want. While browsing through Elsebeth Lavold’s Viking Patterns for Knitting in search of cables for the Durrow-inspired hoodie I’m making Betsy, I saw something I wanted to try on. The charts in the book are amazing, while the overall patterns themselves aren’t necessarily things I’d want to make.

Combine the S-cable discovery with the locally-produced yarn procured from the Hoe’s Down Festival a few weeks back, and I was off and running.

The result, a mishmash (as opposed to an original design) of basketweave brim (heck, I had never knit that stitch heretofore!) with the cables in the frost-covered-soil hues of the corriedale aran yarn. There was an ever-so-slight prickliness to the wool, so I added a liner of cashermere/merino Halfdome leftovers.

I’m not sure if it’s the handsome impact of the natural-colored yarn, the complex cables and textured brim, or the cozy liner on the inside, but I’m sad to let this hat go. That said, I couldn’t imagine a better guy to give it to. I guess he deserves one of my favorite items ever knit.

A few more photos on my flickr.com page

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 6:13 pm and is filed under designing, knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.