hoarder's hat

Of the many great gifts I received for Christmas, one of the most used (so far) is the three-month gift subscription to Netflix. I had been half-heartedly mumbling about joining for some time so Secondo finally pulled the trigger for me, and now we are all completely addicted. I went from rarely watching TV, to watching it all the time, using my LSH's netbook set up next to my knitting chair.

What joy! I have watched musicals that no one will watch with me, historical drama that no one will watch with me, and my guilty pleasure: A&E's Hoarders. If you want to feel better about your own housekeeping, no matter how lackadaisical you may be, this series is for you.

(It is also good motivation to tackle your own personal little issues, such as your youngest son's bedroom. Three boxes of outgrown toys, two bags of outgrown stuffed animals and clothes, and one bag of garbage: gone. Middle son's bedroom is next on the list.)

Like all reality shows, Hoarders follows a set script, and the hoarders themselves are no exception. All of them are thoroughly convinced that their detritius has value and usefulness. Again, there is that feeling of superiority and well, I would never think that a giant plastic cup from 7-11 should be pulled back out of the dumpster, because it's useful life is clearly over.

All the while, my giant drawerful of yarn scraps -- left over from this project and that -- was insistently whispering behind me. How is that so different from us? Why would you save tiny bits of yarn? What possible use can so many of us have? So I was compelled -- nay, possessed -- to make this hat to prove the yarn scraps wrong. We won't address the fact that I am now hearing voices from my yarn, but maybe it will mean a star turn for me on some future reality show.

I used this chunky hat pattern as a base, but the recipe can be adjusted to fit/use up whatever you might have on hand. The hat was knit with bulky yarn held double, using size 15 needles, so it went rather quickly. Details are on my Ravelry project page if you care, but I won't bore you with the nitpicky bits if you don't.

I still had some yarn left over, and the hat looked a little bland, so I crocheted a couple of flowers to tie the whole thing together. The larger one has the yarn held double and used a huge hook; the smaller one was done with just one strand of the yarn and a smaller hook. An added bonus, in my humble opinion, is that the crocheted flowers give it a "Second Hand Rose" sort of flair. (Funny Girl! Just watched it on Saturday!)

Here it is in action yesterday, sledding on the golf course:

Plus a few other gratitious action shots from the sledding, that have nothing to do with the hat, because I can't resist.