I Must Be Looking in All the Wrong Places...

Shortly before my xmas trip down to LA I got a bug in my ear (does that sound like the right idiom) to make some beanies for the bigger boys in my family: My older brother (OB) and my baby brother (BB).

I started a beanie for my BB from my stash as the boy has this thing about "if it has purple in it, I'll take it" so there was some yarn, with purple in it, and yeah, I started it. (Though, to clarify, he did not know he was getting a hat made, he did not specifically state the above purple statement, both just came to me in a "shower thinking" moment.)

Did I mention my BB has a big head? See, unlike OB, it's because of his hair. He's got more hair on his head than the rest of us, mom, dad, me, OB...put together. So I cast on a million stitches in sock-yarn, cuz there was purple in it. Suffice to say, as with all last-minute/desperate knitting ideas I've had...it didn't work out. Along with the purple there was way too much yellow and the green looked awfully fluorescent...I'll take a pic. later, promise, as it's still sitting in a time-out on my desk as I write this.

Instead I decided I'd focus on my OB. I'd tried (and failed failed failed) in the past to make him a hat that would fit. Both, it seems have inherited some ancient Tarascan BIG HEADS. This time it would be done. So shortly before leaving I ventured into a bit of yarn shopping to find some Dale of Norway Falk yarn (as it's worked super well for me in the past for hats) in black, grey, or other dark dreary colors that my brother would wear...

Did I miss something in the yarn world? Or is it a Seattle thing? I could not find a skein of black yarn in Falk or Louet Gems or any other superwash sock-ish yarn to save my life! By utter chance and mistake I dug out the very last dark grey and two very battered black skeins of Ull in the back of the very last shop I had time to go to...(seriously, leaving the next morning and thinking, "Oh, why not try one more shop...")

But I was armed with yarn and needles and cast on as soon as I got on the plane (I'd be there for a few days before xmas, I could do this...) I knit and knit and knit and caught the attention of the children who helped me lie bold as anything and swore that the hat was for MY dad, not theirs (gotta love kids who will go in on capers with you). But also caught the attention of my BB, who very much wanted a black hat also, please.

Well, after finishing my older brother's hat, I didn't have much yarn left, so I told him I'd see what I could do with what I had and started a duplicate hat for him...It fits my head wonderfully...maybe even my nephew's head...my BB's? With a 25.5" circumference? Not so much. And I'd run out of yarn...

So off I went in search of more black yarn...This was December 20th or so.

It's now January, the 20th even. I finally found some black machine-washable-ish sockish yarn for his hat...Seriously, did everyone buy out the yarn stores of their black yarn from LA to Seattle? (Well, it was xmas after all...)

And yes, I know I can order stuff over the internets...but I really wanted to touch and feel and see what I was getting myself into...again, he's got a 25.5" circumference on his behaired noggin', those are a whole lotta stitches if all I could get was super-ultra fingering weight vs fatter heavier fingering (and you know they are ALL labeled JUST fingering...). And with the shipping charges? For yarn I wasn't sure I wanted? My cheapassed nature got the better of me and instead I worked in running a few blocks to a yarn store into my regular Seattle-centered excursions.

When I was picking up my glasses I again figured, "eh, I'm here" and dropped into the yarn store where I'd neither found Falk or Ull or anything close to what I was looking for, but you never know, right?

Hello battered skein of Berocco Ultra Alpaca...I'm about to finish casting on 180 stitches for this boy's hat...I must like him just a little, eh?