What I'm saying is, I'm really glad I made this hat on Thursday!
I go up to Maine for Thanksgiving at my grandparents', and that means a half-hour on the subway, a half-hour on the train, and an hour and a half in the car with my dad and stepmother and sisters each way -- prime knitting time, except for the return car trip which is in the dark. And somehow, the only project I'm working on right now is a scarf for my dad's birthday, so I couldn't bring that (it's Henry, and it's very nice, but I did the math and it's a freaking 50,000 stitch scarf -- what was I thinking?). I cast on for the hat on the subway (24 stitches, as opposed to 400-something for the freaking scarf) and I finished the knitting on the train on the way home. I hadn't realized how quick a project it would be, so I didn't have a yarn needle to graft it together at the end, so I had to finish that at home, otherwise I could have worn it for the subway ride (um, if it hadn't been over 50° out Thursday night).
The pattern is Urchin, from Knitty, by Ysolda. It's cuter than it looks in my photo. I used some handspun yarn that I bought off eBay five or six years ago and never really knew what to do with it. I wanted a big beret so that when I'm too lazy to dry my hair in the morning I can shove it in a hat and not freeze on the way to work -- most of my hats are close-fitting caps with no room for a bun. It didn't come out quite so big and poofy as I was hoping (my own fault -- I only brought one set of needles on the train and I probably should have gone up a size) but it's big enough to accommodate a bun or ponytail, and that's what I was going for. Plus, if I pluck out all my eyebrows and draw them back in with a pencil, I'll be able to blend in with my old Russian lady neighbors, many of whom sport kicky berets year-round.
