The Story of a "Hat"

Hi Flan,
I hope you had a really nice weekend, even though it was tragically shortened by an hour. I hate daylight "savings" time w/ a passion. Even though Congress had nothing better to do 2 years ago than tinker with the damnable thing I don't see why we have to suffer. To top it all off, after having several enraged "discussions" with the nice npr people on the radio about their multiple stories about the change, I neglected to move my clocks forward until Sunday morning. Stupid clock moving.

This weekend I completed my first EZ pattern! Woohoo. I was thumbing through Kw/oT and came upon a little section behind all the sweaters. There are hats and socks back there! Who knew?? Having an assignment from the Harlot, I grabbed some needles and some Lana Grossa Due Chine (leftover from the KO, also thanks to the Harlot) and swatched. We had a bit of a problem, with EZ calling for 2.5 sts/in and I was swatching at 3.5. Fearlessly, I pulled out my calculator. This was the turning point.

There are at least two different hats in Kw/oT that call for 2.5 sts/in (one cleverly disguised as calling for 7sts/3"). One tells you to cast on 36, the other 50. That's an extra 5 inches. The other "quirky" aspect? The one that is 36 sts is a rib, which would hold tighter to the head, the one with 50 tells you to then increase to a number that is truly astonishing (somewhere in the vicinity of 100 if I remember correctly). Far be it from me to question the authority of EZ, but I was a bit nervous.

I cast on and after the band part I increased a mere 15 sts (one pattern repeat) and merrily went about the pattern. I would like to say that the pattern is brilliant. It creates a spiral effect and has the most intelligent decreases known to man. I love it despite of my inability to grasp the numbers.

A few short hours later and I was getting to the point of cast off. It was looking big. Really really big. Seriously large even. I consulted with a Norwedian knitter. She thought it looked pretty big too. Not one to be swayed by experience and consultation, and reluctant to rip it out and do more math, I kept going.

It turns out this, um, "hat" could double as a tea cozy. If the tea pot in question were the size of the nice gatorade coolers players douse coaches with at the end of the game. I tried it on. My bathroom mirror laughed. My head is about a women's medium and my hair is not at all fluffy. I am waiting until The Hubby returns from TN so that he can put it on his much larger head and we can see if there is ripping that needs to happen. I am hoping that the recipient has both a larger head and an inordinant amount of really really fluffy hair. The Hubby currently has the camera because something is lost when you take rocks out of their natural habitat w/o photographing. There will be pictures upon his return because this is truly something to behold.

Do you know if we're supposed to mail them to NY or should we wait to deliver them in MN?