Etherknitter

A Hat for a Man

He needed a new hat.  I had the yarn.  We discussed the design process.

Yarn:  Iron Horse Farm, heavy worsted/aran weight, 160 yards of pumpkin and 160 yards of brown
Fibers:  50% BFL, 50% Shetland wool  (hand wash, lay flat to dry)
Needle:  #8 Addi Turbo Rocket 16" for ribbing, #9 Addi Turbo Rocket 16" for the hat body

When I bought the yarn, I had thought of colorwork.  When I pulled it out to evaluate suitability, colorwork was too fussy for now.  So the design was to start with a brown brim, knit about 3/4 of the brim in brown, start the pumpkin with a hidden, folded part of the brim, do the first cable repeat in pumpkin, then switch to brown for the rest of the hat.  That would stretch the available yarn, and create a nice color combination and contrast.  

I swatched.  The nascent brim looked HUGE.  I put it on a piece of yarn.  He tried it on.  He raised his eyebrow, and it fell into his eyes.  I used a crochet hook to pinch off a cable repeat while the circle of yarn was still around his forehead, and went from 144 stitches to 132 stitches.  Much better.

When I got to the second cable repeat, he demanded more pumpkin.  The pumpkin extended to the last full cable repeat that I could eke out of the skein.  He agreed.  One more cable repeat in brown, then decreases for the crown.  The top was a rectum closure.  Four ends (associated with the color changes) to weave in, the top strand to tack and cinch.  I used the cast-on tail, anti-slinky method of closing the gap described by Patty Lyons in a recent MDK post.

(It is a fantastic technique and where has it been all my knitting life?  My unventions never came close to being as slick.)  The brim was super springy, so needed to be tacked to the main body of the hat so it would not sproing free into the wearer's eyes.  

The pictures show the design process, the hat on the man, the hat on the exercise ball, and the hat on the floor.  He loves it.  So do I.

 

 

Happy New Year 2019

I am so happy to still be here to see a new Year.  

So, yes, resolutions have been out the window for several years.  I have joined the focused word per year group to practice effective change.  This approach leaves behind the unavoidable and odious concept of broken resolutions.  

2015:  Presence
2016:  Resilience
2017:  None
2018:  Patience

2019 has been a difficult choice.  Equanimity was the concept, but the actionable part was hard to identify.  I didn't think deep breaths would work to bring it on.  The French concept of sang froid (cold blood, or calm) fit.  But, again, there wasn't something actionable.  Does calm = equanimity?  I wasn't sure about that, since I could reach calm, but without equanimity.  Dictionaries have not provided much help with synonyms that might be easier to link with equanimity.  The lovely Google search below gives context:

e·qua·nim·i·ty

/ˌekwəˈnimədē/

noun

noun: equanimity

1. mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.

   "she accepted both the good and the bad with equanimity"

   synonyms:

   composure, calm, level-headedness, self-possession, coolheadedness, presence of mind; serenity, tranquility, phlegm, imperturbability, equilibrium;  poise, assurance, self-confidence, aplomb, sangfroid, nerve;  informalcool "she confronted the daily crises with equanimity"

   antonyms:

   anxiety

Origin

early 17th century (also in the sense ‘fairness, impartiality’): from Latin aequanimitas, from aequus‘equal’ + animus ‘mind.’

 

Translate equanimity to Choose language Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Bangla Basque Belarusian Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Cebuano Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Nyanja Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Samoan Scottish Gaelic Serbian Shona Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Southern Sotho Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Western Frisian Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Zulu

 

Use over time for: equanimity

 

So this will be a work in progress, I think.  Deep breaths with an associated thought of calm will be how I will start. 

 

Discussing this with Mr. Etherknitter (who personifies equanimity), my daily translation will be "let it go".  Clearly, that is not one word, but I am good with that.  He suggests working towards calm when in situations over which I have little or no immediate or long-term control.  

 

I think that is a good working plan.

 

And, of course, speaking of good working plans, I have made some small-scale fiber goals aimed to please rather than aimed to plan my pleasure.

 

1.  Spin whatever appeals.  Or not.
2.  Finish the towel warp.

3.  Put on a rag rug warp.

4.  Finish 4 UFOs during the year, including Grant Park Pullover.

5.  Knit stuff other than baby gifts.

 

I got pretty burned out on baby stuff, especially blankets.  Those are done for the foreseeable future.  Too much work.  Hats remain on the forefront of the queue, and fun stuff for winter knitting is there too.  But I am going to be driven by fun and yarn and utility in that order.  I want to knit more for Mr. E.  That is where the GP Pullover comes in, and the Jason hat (FO pix in the near future) that is currently a lovely knit.  When I post that, I will post a list of 2018 FOs, which were not insubstantial.

 

Happy New Year to all who lurk with me!