Skip to main content

Hat Calamity

 Bloody Kate the Resident Shrew has eaten a hole in my Winter hat! And she’s run off with the magnificent bobble, too. I discovered this a couple of days ago when I was giving the laundry a post-‘swallow have now flown’ sweep and tidy, and almost, but not quite, lost my unbending tolerance of the Annoying Habits Sometimes Displayed by Nature’s Creatures. Of course, the hat vandalism is my fault completely because a) I know Kate the Shrew is resident in the laundry and b) I shouldn’t, therefore, have left my Winter bobble hat in there. The combination was never going to be good. 

After perusing all sorts of lovely replacement hats on t’internet (widening my search into other areas after  a ‘what would you like for your birthday?’ request from Lord Malarkey) I decided, in the spirit of reuse, recycle, re-whatever else one is encouraged to do in these stricken times, to make a second Winter Bobble Hat. After all, I had made the first. It wouldn’t take long. And I had a scarf (also handmade) which, after an initial outing, was obviously going to be waaaaay too hot to wear on a regular basis. I’m not a massive fan of scarves. I have a natural discomfort for wearing things around my neck. I can’t really cope with a polo neck jumper. I think I must have been strangled in a previous life. Therefore, I unravelled the scarf, and in doing so discovered how efficient I am at weaving in loose ends. (Sighs….rolls eyes…)

This is my woolly hat maker…


It came in a set of 4 - a tiny one for babies and toddlers, a slightly bigger one for children or adults with impossibly small heads, this one for the average sized adult head and the biggest one for silverback gorillas. Or Mr Pumpkin Head. It’s basically French knitting on a large scale using a hooked implement that can only be described as vicious. There’s no seam so sew up, and creating the brim of one’s hat is easily executed. However, if like me you are a bit of a tense crafter i.e you like your stitches on the TIGHT side because TIGHT = NEAT, then making a hat in one sitting makes your index finger and thumb go numb, which is why I’m sitting here this morning with fuzzy fingertips. Nerve damage, I expect. Some kind of repetitive strain injury. I really ought to pace myself with these things. 

Here is my new recycled but as yet unbobbled Winter hat…

I don’t know if I’m going to add a bobble just yet. I’ve eyed up my unravelled scarf wool and reckon I have enough for a second hat. Once my fingers have regained their feeling, of course. Or perhaps I should charge on ahead with Hat Two and save myself a second bout of fuzzy fingers? Anyway, a second hat would be great, wouldn’t it, to keep in the car maybe in case I find myself stuck in deep snow drifts over Winter and need to conserve body heat whilst awaiting rescue? But what if I add a bobble to Hat One and then find I’ve not enough wool for Hat Two and it ends up looking like beret? Heather can carry off a beret. I’m not sure I can. I’m not sure I want to, to be honest. 

It’s National Hair Day, apparently. Here I am in a slightly crazy old lady photo wearing the new hat. It is also useful for covering up wild hair that needs washing…



Comments

Anonymous said…
What a great hat! I have a few of those thingies but not had the patience for them yet. I can almost hear them calling now. I’ll ignore the call of the wild things a little longer. ( Almost got poetic there).
KJ
1 October 2022 at 21:38
Denise said…
It is a good hat, KJ. It is very, very warm because it is made from super chunky wool. More than enough to cope with our British Winters which I appreciate are nothing compared to the Winters in your part of the world! Go on - make a hat! You know you want to! 🙂
2 October 2022 at 10:06
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Frosted Dawn Enigma

The decorators are in at the moment. Stairs and landing. Given my previous history of 'Hoo Ha Occurring on Stairs ' - reference the Trapped Under the Sofa Incident and the Foot Wedged Between Bookcase and Stair Rise Debacle - I thought it wise to pay for professionals to decorate the stairs and landing rather than get myself in a mix with ladder and plank combinations and achieve the Magic Three of staircase accidents. The decorators are a father and son combo who go by the  names of Craig and David. This automatically causes me entertainment. 'Came in on a Monday, prepped, filled and undercoated, back on Thursday, first top coating, by Friday finishing touches...' Okay, not as frisky or well-scanned as the original song, but you get where I'm coming from. Anyway, before they started the job Craig asked what colour I wanted for the walls. 'Same colour as the downstairs walls, please,' said I. 'Dulux Frosted Dawn.' And then white for ...
2 comments
Read more

Day 1 - Decisions Are Made Beyond the Author's Control.

‘Well,’ I say, looking at the expectant faces gathered around the huge table in the Great Dining Hall of Much Malarkey Manor, ‘I didn’t think it was going to happen this year, but it is!’ There is a sharp intake of breath as everyone wonders of what I speak. I’ve been muttering about all sorts recently, and I’m not talking liquorice here either.   ‘The Much Malarkey Manor Annual and Traditional Christmas Story!’ I say, and wait for the expulsed air of relief to settle before I continue. ‘I thought we had done it all. I thought we had covered every Christmas story there was. I’ve been wracking my brains for a full two months now, trying to come up with something we haven’t done before and then it hit me! We haven’t done a version of one of the Great Christmas Films of Yore!’ ‘Your what?’ says Mrs Slocombe, who is more interested in the selection of pastries I have brought to this breakfast meeting, because that is what one does, isn’t it? Eat pastries at breakfast...
8 comments
Read more

Sun Puddles

A few weeks ago, I met up with a dear friend for a meditation and healing afternoon, both of us being light workers on the spirit pathway. It did me good to re-engage in a bit of focused energy channelling (because I have let my practice slip somewhat) and during the afternoon the words ‘sun puddles’ popped into my head.  Now, I know this wasn’t my human brain thinking these words because I have never heard the phrase before; when I arrived home, I looked it up and said to myself, ‘Aaah, you mean sun spots!’ This is a sun puddle... ...there! That thing that Flora is lying on. No, not the sofa - the warm patch of sunshine on the sofa. Here are Flora and Bambino sharing a sun puddle... This proves that no matter how much they scrap with each other and try to denude each other of fur all over my rugs, they secretly share a mutual and fond admiration. I think. And here is Bambino on a sun puddle that has come to rest on my legs... It’s his casual, ‘I’m so cool’ pose. Metaphorically coo...
3 comments
Read more