A hat, no cat!

Lookie what I did this weekend. This is Scratchy's new hat. I love it.

Last Friday afternoon I was engulfed by a wave of inspiration which led to a hat being cast on almost soon as I thought of it. I literally cast on the 72 stitches and began doing the ribbing while I looked through my stitch glossaries (AKA: Sock Books). When I found this cute little 6+1 repeat the hat was born. It took about 2 hours of knitting (10 pattern repeats and lots of interruptions) to get to the point where I had to come up with a way to decrease for the top.

Since this meant that I had to think and do some elemental maths, I quit for the day and went grocery shopping. Maths and thinking are best left for the wee hours of the night when the short people around here aren't asking for juice or diapers or having the "she wont be my friend" fight. So off we went to the grocery store.

A quick note on this; I never go anywhere on Saturday, lest it be the Library. Saturday is our designated "Don't leave the house unless it's on fire or there's a birthday" day. Parting those two instances (the ones in the tittle of the designated day )there are few exceptions to the rule of "never leave the house on Saturday". We stay home because no matter where you go in Houston on a Saturday, it is guaranteed to be packed. The parks packed, grocery stores; you'd think they were giving away the food. Movies; ugh! Oddly enough the only place not packed is my local library, which I adore.

Who knew Saturdays were "free sample day" at the g-stores. I sure as heck didn't (see note above) I must admit, due the to the abundance of free samples, we skipped lunch. I know it seems like a bad mothering move, but in my defense; they had grilled chicken with roasted veggies, eggrolls, pot roast with carrots, lots of fruit on a toothpick(cantaloupe, pineapple, blueberries, mango and oranges) organic apple juice (which I bought), yogurt smoothies and organic wheat free-gluten free blueberry waffles with organic maple syrup. I ask you mothers, so high up on that hill, would you still be hungry? I didn't think so. Beside when we returned home, 3 hours later, I asked Jess and Lily if they were hungry and they gave me that look I used to give my mother when I was having not so very nice thoughts about the level of her intelligence. Lily said to me, "no mummy, I not hungry. We ate ALOT of food, ne-member" and Jess concurred with her sister and then stated "yeah mum, ne-member we stealed all that food at the stores!" 0_O

After I got up off the floor I corrected my daughter. I informed her that the reason we didn't pay for the food was because they were giving it away for free (stops to explain the concept of free to Lily) and that they give it away so that you can taste it and if you like it you buy one, and if you don't like it you don't buy one. Therefore we did NOT steal the food. We must get out more on Saturdays! I'm just thankful we were alone in the house when she said this.

I did chores the rest of Saturday, it seemed like the right thing to do. I knit on the neglected cardigan and a pair of socks that evening. Sunday morning, before Church, the hat was almost finished, then It had a dip in the frog pond. Just a wee dip though, cause it did this, and I did not care for it.

I finagled with the pattern again after dinner, until it was done. It is beautiful, if I do say so myself and even though the math was quite simple (as is the pattern) I am quite proud. I wrote it down, just have to type it up, knit it again (Lily wants one too) and I'll have it ready to post here. I figure if I neglect the laundry tomorrow I'll have it ready to go by Wednesday, would anyone be interested?

FYI: the stitch marker above, it's my first one I ever made. I love it more than what may be appropriate for a stitch marker. And also, it's the only one I've made. It was hard as heck to make it!