When I was a little girl, I used to dress up as a cat, crawl around on the floor, mew incessantly, and partake in kitty-like activities like rubbing up against my mother’s leg (like a CAT people, like a cat.) She played along so well, that she would even call me by my cat name (that she gave me!) — Bijou.

So, although I may be getting a tad too old to wear it out in public (though I likely will), it seems only fitting that I should make this:

This is my kittyville hat from Debbie Stoller’s Stitch n’ Bitch.

Here’s another view.

Obviously, I didn’t get too creative with the colors or the yarn. I’m very picky about hats. Hats itch. Itching is BAD. Cashmerino is GOOD. Soooooooft. Soft hopefully means NOT ITCHY. I wanted to add a hot pink accent, but I never really found a bright, hot pink yarn that complimented the cashmerino, so I stuck with black. I like black. I like black almost as much as I hate itchy. black : good as itchy : bad.

In an attempt to be cute, I thought the two ‘cats’ of the house should take a picture together.

Hayley apparently doesn’t appreciate being used for blog fodder. She does, however, like hangin’ with the mommy.

In case you have any doubt of this, HERE IS THE PROOF! This is a picture of Hayley as she is plotting to jump off of the bathroom sink and on to the mommy. Seperation anxiety, anyone?

The only thing about my kitty hat is that the EARS are all wierd. And my head is too big! (ok, that’s two things.) Cashmerino is a thinner worsted, and with my big head, that makes the hat kinda tight. It fits, but my head looks goofy in it. I didn’t check gauge cause it’s a hat and I’m lazy. I kinda knew it would be a problem because I’ve made this hat before :

The same hat, sans ears, plus pom-pom.

That hat was WAY to small when I tried it on just to see…But I used to knit TWISTED, and twisting the stiches makes the fabric tighter, and now that I don’t TWIST anymore, the same hat, knit on the same needles, using the SAME YARN, should be BIGGER, no?

I guess the theory works, as the new hat is just tight-fitting and not WAY too small, but still.

As for the EARS, well. I kinda made them up. I started out doing them the way the pattern said, but I thought they were too limp and flimsy (it is possible that I neglected to see an entrie line of the pattern which said to repeat the ear and whipstitch them together, but we’ll ignore that for now). Plus, I didn’t like the way the seed stitch looked. SO, I ripped out the one ear I did and started over. I doubled the yarn. Which worked! Except that the first time I did it, I picked up the stiches using a single strand and then knit them doubled. The SECOND ear, I picked up using a DOUBLE strand and knit them doubled. The first ear ended up looking odd at the bottom (go figure!), but since I’d ripped it out once, and I think again after that, I didn’t feel like redoing it. So I fudged it. And you can tell.

Here are my wonky ears. Can you guess which one is the ‘bad’ ear?

They also have a tendency to curl over on themselves. I tried to block it out, but I think they’re doing it again. {{sigh}} Oh well. I may decide to gift this one to a twelve-year-old I know. She’ll totally love it! I was going to knit her something else, so what I think I’ll do is knit that, and then decide what to give her when I have both to compare.

As a companion to the hat though, I’m making this and it’s taking FOREVER:

It’s Cashmerino on US7s in a K4P2 rib

It SUCKS to knit this thing. How do people make scarf after scarf!?!? I don’t get it!?!? Is this why novelty scarves tend to be garter stitch on really BIG needles?

AAANNNNYYYYWAY, tonight is knitting meetup at Mayorga Coffee Factory in Silver Spring! If you’re in the area and want to sit and knit with us, come on by!

PS - Has anyone else noticed that the Cashmerino in Debbie Bliss’ Cashmerino Aran starts with CASH? CASHmerino? Ironic, no?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 20th, 2004 at 3:54 pm and is filed under knit, general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.