For Christmas, #1 Son gave me Knitting For Peace, a wonderful book full of simple patterns that can be made with inexpensive yarn, and lots of stories and ideas about knitting for others.

He gave me the book a couple of days early, and we leafed through it together, looking at the pictures. When we cam to the picture of the Caps For Kids Swirled Ski Hat, #1 Son said Mom, if you knit that for me I would so wear it. Blue would be nice.

What more does a mother need to hear? It’s not often that #1 Son asks me to knit him anything. When he does, I believe in striking while the iron is hot (so to speak). Yarn was purchased that very day and the hat was cast on that very night. #1 Son had already received his big present from me, but I was determined that Santa would leave a hat under the tree for him.

I couldn’t hold him still long enough to take a picture of the hat actually on his head, but rest assured that it fits perfectly and he liked it.

The Particulars:

• Yarn: Karabella Aurora 8 (100% extrafine Marino wool/ 50g, 98m per skein) in colorways #1 (dark blue) and #44 (light blue) — about 1-1/2 skeins of the light and 1 skein of the dark. A second skein of the dark blue was needed to make the pompom after I totally messed up the first pompom, but those better at making pompoms than I could make one using the leftovers from the second light blue skein.
• Needles: US#7 (4.5mm) and US#8 (5 mm) — larger needles for the hat, smaller for the brim
• Pattern: Knitting For Peace: Caps For Kids Swirled Ski Hat
• Modifications:
  • For adult size large, cast on 50 stitches and worked one extra pattern repeat.
  • Used a provisional cast-on and then grafted the two sides of the hat together (hat is worked flat)
  • Kitchener/grafted/tubular bind-off instead of standard bind-off (a little over-achiever, I know, but I just like that bind-off)

Blogging may be sparse or non-existent for the next few days. Not that there’s been an overwhelming amount the last couple of weeks. You know how the holidays are.