Hat hair!

Anyone who knows me, knows I love hats! I've had a love affair with them since I was little....with one problem. I have curly hair. Again, those who know me, know my crazy curls. I love them wild and slightly unruly but I also like having a warm head in the winter. Here lies my problem: I could slightly blow-dry my hair so that it's not the dripping wet mess I usually leave it so it'll curl it's own way but then end up with slightly wavy, if not horrible hair. I could also leave it the dripping wet mess and have it freeze slightly. My hair needs to be perfect (well, what I deem perfect, at any rate) or I fuss with it all day and it drives me mad. Am I vain? Yeah...I'm a girl, so sue me. My other option is to completely blow-dry it and straighten it, lest I have "I stuck my finger into the outlet" hair. What's a girl to do?

I have an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow after work. I haven't gotten it cut since right before Halloween. EEK! I usually get it cut once a month so skipping November is huge! I've picked out two possible cuts to get...if I could find them online I'll post em. Maybe I'll check right now. BRB Oh well, couldn't find them. I'm leaning more towards one but now I don't know what to do about my hat situation.

Green Foliage is my go-to hat. I love it with a passion and I love how it pops off my red coat. When I bought the coat before winter started this year, I was nervous I would look too Christmas-y. Ani assured me I would not and boy was she right. Look:


I took the picture on Friday, after I got home from work. My neighbors probably think I'm a complete wacko...more on that after the hat-crisis discussion is over.

You'll notice in the picture that my hair comes out at the sides. It's almost shoulder length in the front at this point and it's visible in the back too but once I cut my hair, it won't be any longer and Foliage will look silly. **sad face** I've noticed berets have been really in for the past couple seasons and I don't really see them going anywhere for a while. I like them a lot but how do you keep them from sliding off your head? Is that a weird question to ask? And I only ask it because when I wear headband type things like Calorimetry, they slide and I'm constantly fixing them. I suppose I could use bobby pins but I don't want them to show.

Decisions, decisions. Any one have any good hat suggestions? I might knit Layla-Classic Knit Tam, (Rav link) but who knows.

Cowls are also very big this season and I've recently fallen in love with KristinKnits' Thermis. The pattern's only $2.50 and she says it's unisex...I could see it, but I wonder if any guy I know would actually wear it. Dear any man in my life, if you would wear Thermis, I will love you forever. Ooh, look what I found! (Rav link again--sorry non-knitters) Looks like men can wear it and look debonaire!

Back to my neighbors thinking I'm crazy. I left work at 12:30 on Friday. I had already planned on taking the time off and frankly, I wasn't going to wait until they announced they were going to close the office. Good thing I didn't, they closed at 1:45 and even at 12:30, it took me almost an hour to get home. Boo to winter weather. Why am I still living in New England? Whatever, that's not the point...point is: When I got home, I ran upstairs, grabbed my camera and my original, blue Foliage hat to snap some pictures of them in action.


There I am, standing on my porch with my camera and first, I took video of it snowing and me talking to my camera for Henk. After the quick video, I turned to face the house and started snapping pictures. I missed a couple times but no one REALLY needed to know that. I shot Green Foliage first since that's what I was wearing on my drive home from work...I then went back inside (Greg has a mirror right inside the front door) and switched hats. Outside I went again and started all over again, holding the camera at all different angles to get the best possible shots. Doesn't the snow look great in the background? That's what I was going for--I'm not a photographer by any means, mind you. I kind of wish that I had some other hats to photog to keep up the charade of going inside, swithing hats and going back out.

I did start on Thorpe (as seen on Brooklyntweed's blog, **swoon**, who coincidently has a nice cowl project too, only it's slightly too simple for my taste right now) but I only had worsted weight yarn so I had to alter the pattern a little. I increased until I had 102 stitches and my gauge is 5 st/in so that'll give me a hat of roughly 20 inches, right? It's wool and no one likes wool hats too tight that they inch their forehead and from the two men I surveyed, it seems that a 22 inch head is average for guys. I think that's how big my head is too. But since I adjusted the overall stitch number, I need to figure out the placement for the earflaps. I figured I would test it on my brother tomorrrow at work. I forgot to do it today. It's a little big on me when my hair is straight, and it's a little difficult to mark spots on my own head, so I need another test subject. I'll try to get a picture of the WIP when trying it on Joey and marking the earflap placement.

I think that's it for knitting news. Justin came up with Mary Tyler Gore for my Derby name. Good? I actually really like it. I've had numerous people tell me I'm "Suzy Home-maker" since I like to bake, knit and crochet and having such a name would just play into that side of me that people seem to see when they first meet me. Maybe that's why I want to knit berets all of a sudden? hehe I did mention to Justin that if I do go with MTG, I should have a beret to throw in the air when they announce me...but then I thought only the older crowd would get why I did that. Oh well.

Happy Monday!