Hats & the P Setting

So I totally forgot that I started a post yesterday and now, hello, it's today, and I know I was messing with you all, posting every day for like three whole days in a row...but obviously that didn't last and we're now back to my haphazard schedule.

So back when I was last in LA, for the xmas visit of dooooom, I knit and knit and knit on a hat for my older brother because, hello! His head was RIGHT THERE and I was RIGHT THERE and by gods I would make him one that he could wear and not look like he stole his son's hat.

Or something.

Every evening/into the night, I'd sit and watch my baby brother's DVDs of Bones and Supernatural and knit some more. And finally, when he realized what I was knitting might not look as silly as a hand-knit might (cuz I don't think he's ever really looked at my mom's socks...or maybe he has and pink and light blue and other non-baby brother colors possibly look like poopie to him and any other teen of his age/phase of adolescence...I know, I went through it myself; I'm much better now thank you), he asked if there was any chance I could replicate a machine-knit hat that he'd permanently borrowed from a friend of his.

What? Me knit a beanie on size 2 or smaller needles? Really? And you want me to do it? Not a forced gift?

Dude, I was so there.

As soon as I cast off my brother's gargantua-hat (which I don't have a picture of, unfortunately, but I can tell you all this, it is not too small for him in any way, shape or form...nope, not too small at all) I cast on for my baby brother.

I knit and knit and knit on size 2 needles using a Dale of Norway fingering-weight yarn whose name escapes me in black and dark grey which you can't even see unless you have a much spiffy monitor than me...and once finished I bathed it in COLD water as I usually do...and it barely fit my head, which I have stated before, is MUCH smaller than the heads of all the males in my family. I think it shrank...which makes me wonder what my older brother's hat must look like now...maybe it just fits now, I don't know, whatever the case I am not really sad that I forgot the name of the yarn because I don't think I will ever use it for such things as hats for family members because I was and possibly am still a wee bit peeved.

I put the remaining yarn in a time out and went out into the world to look for more black yarn to make a hat that fit.

That was back when I posted asking about the disappearance of all black yarn in the world...or at least all of the LYS's I frequent, until finally I found some ultra-Alpaca in size cobweb (okay, maybe I exaggerate...but it really is thin) that I actually cast on for and got several inches through the had before I realized I'd be 500 years old before I finished because even I couldn't justify a beanie on size 0 needles. Not in black yarn. During the middle of winter.

So I dug deep into my unfinished sock pile and found some nice black Louet Gems that might do the trick, cast on 150-some odd stitches and perfected my knit-while-I-walk-to-work habit until I finally had a hat in my hands:

Yes, what look like two very similar very black hats. I stretched the bejebus out of the black and grey one until it almost, but not quite the same size as it's all-black brother. If it doesn't fit him, maybe he can give it to his girlfriend and they can be all em0-matchy-matchy. Do kids still do that?

Anyhow, thus ends my tale, and the hats themselves are currently enroute to my baby brother and should (touch wood) be there in time for his birthday...when, sniff, I'll have to stop calling him baby and think of something new...cuz he'll be all of 18 then...dude, I feel so old!

And what about the"P" setting? That's just a reminder to me more than anything. I took my hat pictures using that setting. I must remember NEVER EVER to do that again. This is why you see two black hats as the "P" setting is not my friend. I don't know what it does, but I know it does not differentiate colors that are super close to one another (i.e. black and grey) and when they are set against a super light color? It's all blended together in a weird monochrome I'd rather not have. Okay, that's all.