Osborn Fiber Studio

One day, N is going to figure out that I will knit her absolutely anything she asks me for. On that day, I will be in trouble.

The girls literally call the multiple balls of mohair, from the Mitered Majesty, my “fuzzies.” They ask to hold them, and under my nervous gaze, they parade around the room with them, cuddle them, find the hole in the middle and make them into “bracelets.”

N had been bugging me for a few days to make her a hat. Er, I’m in Canada now, so I need to call it a toque, I think. (Rhymes with “Luke.”) Anyway, she has a few toques, but she described to me how she wanted a small hat that would fit under her hood. This made sense; her main hat toque that she likes to wear outside is kind of large on her, and probably gets shoved around under her hood.

I immediately thought of Aviatrix, which I’d filed away in my library ages ago. It’s adorable, but I never made it. It comes with directions for a bundle of sizes and weights of yarn. N approved the picture I showed her.

What she really wanted was a toque made out of the green fuzzy. No dice, I told her. I needed that yarn for the project it was in! I finally talked N into coming up to the cedar chest to pick something, and she seized on a single ball of sock yarn that we will charitably call “mustard” and not “dried pee.”

“Do you like yellow?” I asked.
“No, I like blue.”
“Do you want me to make you a blue hat?”
“No, that yellow yarn.”

We went back downstairs, and she proceeded to lose her mind because I didn’t produce a toque that instant. What can I say? Being three is confusing, and it was dinner/nightmare child time.

When the nightly marathon of dinner and bedtime were over, I sat down to swatch for said toque. She’s picked a fingering, which wouldn’t officially work with the pattern, and I didn’t think I’d have enough with it held double. Besides, when I tried it out, I found that the yarn felt sort of dusty and squeaky in my hands. By itself, it would feel like wearing a dry sponge.

I glanced back over at the bag of fuzzies. After all, I thought, I’ve knit more than half of the Mitered Miracle, and the balls look barely used. I looked up their yardage, and it’s ridiculous: Rowan Kidsilk Haze has 229 yards in a 50 gram ball. If I used 100 yards of each, I’d have 900 yards in the shawl, and I probably wasn’t using that much. Even if I was, the remaining 129 yards would be plenty for a little Aviatrix.

So I swatched it in. The green with the mustard looked like something a cat might produce after eating grass, so I switched to the gold, which is quite close in hue to the mustard. It gave me gauge for the DK pattern, and felt lovely, so I cast on.

I sneezed and there was a toque.

This was so fun to make. The fabric made by the kidsilk haze with the fingering was just… it was a dream. It has the substance of the unyielding wool-acrylic blend, but the softness of kid mohair, and the silk keeps it from being stiff. The two slightly different shades in very different textures interacted to create a depth of color neither of them had alone. (As an aside, I appear to have plenty of gold kidsilk left to finish the Mighty Mitered Mohair, if you were worried.)

The pattern was highly entertaining. It’s hard to put down in the middle of a section, and I kept wanting to start just one more. It’s well thought through, and the way the rib blends down into the garter stitch ear flaps entertains me exceedingly. The pattern is no longer free, but is worth buying.

My main mod was that I added a seventh short-row section, both because my row gauge was short as usual, and because I wanted to err on the side of it being lower on the forehead.

I finished first thing on Saturday morning, and N explored my Button Rejects Bag and picked a big ol’ black button. Which, of course, makes this hat Steelers colors. My Pittsburgh girl. She even tried to wear it like a football helmet.

She doesn’t quite understand the strap, but seems to be able to fasten it OK by herself. I’m hoping it’ll help keep it in place under her hood.

The first pictures make the hat look quite green, but that’s CFL lighting for you. When it was finished, we had some glorious golden light that set it off perfectly. Sunrise at 9 AM in Iqaluit!

She only looks grumpy because I’m making her sit in the bright light. She loves the hat, and it was so effective that she went to the playground today in -30, and played happily until Daddy noticed her cheeks getting overly red.

That has me wondering if this fabulous knitted fabric could be adapted to a bottom-half-of the-face-mask shape. Maybe it could be backed with gore-tex to be wind-proof. And of course M wants one now. Hmm…. the fuzzies may multiply again.