Another hat trick

Continuing with the theme of selfish knitting, I completed three hats in the month of January and they are all for me. The first hat is a practical one; I needed a hat that will stay put on my head while I am shoveling snow or tramping around the woods on snowshoes. When design team Tin Can Knits offered a free pattern, I was immediately smitten with the Hunter hat. I chose Berroco Vintage, a superwash wool, so I can toss it in the dryer without worry, and decided to use two contrasting colors:

I liked the pattern and the cables, but it turned out far more pointed or “elfy” than I really like. Either I misread the pattern or I would find a way to minimize the pointiness if I knit the pattern again. But I guess some humor is always welcome when shoveling snow!

The next hat was knit to match my brown coats. I had been drooling over Madelinetosh yarn in the Glazed Pecan colorway and a new hat was a good excuse to use it:

How I love the Tosh yarn - the color, the feel, the richness. The pattern is the Slouchy Beehive Hat by Flora Cheung, and the alternating sections of knits and purls made it a great project for watching college football bowl games.

The last hat is pure folly and frivolity. The Easy Slouch Hat was either featured in a Facebook post by Jimmy Beans Wool or one of their newsletters, and I immediately thought it would be fun to knit in a yarn with a metallic thread in it. Then I took it one step further and thought "Sequins! It needs sequined yarn!" I found Universal Yarn's Classic Shades Sequins Lite and bought it in the Primrose colorway.

The pattern was very easy but still interesting enough to hold my interest. This was my first time knitting with sequined yarn and it was much easier than I anticipated. Soon I had a sparkly hat:

I adore this hat! It is just what I wanted, a hat that is not necessarily practical but fun, sparkly and colorful. I wore the hat yesterday while out and about, and three women at the library made a big fuss over it, wanting to know where I got it. When I told them I knit it, they were even more impressed. It was nice to have my work noticed, and their compliments along with the sequins helped to lift my spirits.

Derby Day 2013

Yesterday was the Pinewood Derby for Cub Scout Pack 248, the last derby for Aidan and his fellow Webelos II. The Pinewood Derby has often been a source of conflict in our home; in past years, James has had to push Aidan to design and work on his car, often at the last minute. This year, we told Aidan that if he wanted to have a car in the derby, then up was up to him to design the car and start work on it well ahead of time...and if he did not, then he wouldn't have a car. Period.

Much to our surprise and delight, he came up with the concept and plan about a month in advance, and asked James to help him cut out the shape. Then Aidan did all the sanding and once James helped him tape out the design, he did all the painting.The only other work that James did was to place the wheels onto the car and add weights.

Tada! Here is Aidan's Star Spangled car:

The derby was its usual blend of excitement bordering on hysteria, and parents jostling for the best camera angles. There was quite an assortment of cars:

There were, of course, cars that were obviously made entirely by parents; two dads in particular are well known in the pack for expending significant effort and money on their sons' cars. It does cause resentment on the part of both scouts and parents, but there really isn't anything that can be done to prevent it.

Each car raced in each of the six lanes on the track and then times were tabulated. The top eighteen cars - half of the field - then raced again, and again the cars races in each of the six lanes. Aidan's car was in the top eighteen but against the fastest cars, it did not come out near the top on most races.

The results will be announced at Tuesday night's pack meeting, along with the cars that won awards like "Most Colorful" or "Most Imaginative". Aidan knows that his car will not place in the top three in the pack, but he holds out hope that he will place in the top three in his den. Considering that five out of the six cars in his den went on to the finals, I think winning a place in the den in highly unlikely. I hope that all those talks about good sportsmanship will bear fruit on Tuesday night!