hats and socks, oh my!

My family back east is a little nuts. They quite often occasionally succumb to unexpected bouts of silliness. I've been with them a few times when it strikes and end up teary-eyed and weak from laughter. They keep me from getting too serious about varieties of important unimportant things which I tend to do. I was in somber mode yesterday when we received this picture of Dante wearing the hat and socks nonnagrande (me) made him, surrounded by an array of other handknitted socks. I can imagine that someone noted the socks and hat and tossed their own socks at him (mother, father, grandmother). I can almost hear them laughing and trying to shush each other up so as not to wake him. He obviously wasn't disturbed. How cute is this gratifying mood changer?

seeing the future
Last night I worked on the Ali (MacGraw) Cap. Very curious to see how it would turn out. I liked working the variety of simple patterns with clear instructions. By 10 o'clock I began to worry that I'd run out of yarn and thinking I'd be unable to sleep until I knew, I kept knitting. I figured the yardage must have been calculated for the kit, but everyone knits differently, I didn't check the gauge, and you never know. Making mistakes on straight knit rows, I stopped working at 11! This morning over coffee I finished. There was enough yarn with a tiny bit left over. I wore it during breakfast.  I love this hat pattern!

It's the hat that I wished for a few days ago. Lightweight, covers my ears. Today temps were in the high hatless 60s, but given the  vicissitudes of mountain weather at this time of year, it's sure to change soon. As predicted, I want more. I'm going to Santa Fe tomorrow so I'll stop at Tutto's. I plan to start my own one person hat-a-month club and knit them in different colors for the four female members of my dippy family and one special friend. Then, when I visit again in winter, we'll wear them on beach walks and in the City.

happy St. Patrick's Day
I don't have a drop of Irish blood in my body, but I like the holiday which I got used to celebrating with friends at Irish pubs in Manhattan when I was young.  The pubs in those olden days had sawdust on the floors, corned beef sandwiches and green beer. The line in the middle of Fifth Avenue was painted green for the parade and revelers drifted into the pubs all day long and later to dances at hotels.  That was a long time ago and for all I know it may still be happening in the same way. We will celebrate modestly with a couple of mugs of Irish Coffee (decaf so we won't be awake all night). Ah, how things change.