Saturday's Hat*

Here's my version of Dizzy, which doesn't make my head spin despite the name. My rendition, however, is a bit scratchy. Warm, but itchy. I may have to layer it with another hat to make it useful and not just a dust-catcher in my household. Overall, I'm pleased. The hat fits. It's made from yarn from my stash. I did it all by myself, with virtually no help. I only had to buy one set of DPNs to complete it. Truly thrifty. Next up, is some sewing at Vogue Fabrics this afternoon and knitting a pair of toe warmers using an ounce of vintage Fleisher's EverMatch in a bluish green yarn. I've already butchered the heel once already! It's a great feeling to knit something with a bump that's actually supposed to be there.
*The scarf? It's actually a bolero jacket I sewed.

Dressing Retro, Knitting at Superdawg

For those of you who live in Chicago, particularly the Northwest side, there's no need to explain Superdawg. It just is. I've actually never eaten there, but it made a huge impression on me every time my mother would drive past it on our way home from my grandmother's house in Westchester. With 10 children, we couldn't afford to eat there. All those hotdogs! Fries! Cokes! Forget about it. We only ate out on Sundays at restaurants where kids under age 5 could eat for free, and that was more than half the tribe. So SuperDawg was just a pipedream for us kids. Still is (I don't consider myself all-growed-up to use TMZ's term). Anyhow, the flirting guy-and-girl weiners has been practically burned into my memory...not unlike the burning glow of the devil's eyes at St. Michael's Church in the Old Town neighborhood. Those kind of eyes are most unforgettable in a spooky way.

Anyhow, I don't live far from SuperDawg even today. I really owe it to my taller, wage-earning self to dine here at least once. Here's my idea: what if I created a Meetup.com group dedicated to dressing retro, knitting and dining at this most retro eatery, say, at least once a month? This place is already a magnet for old car lovers. Why not go the extra stitch and dress like it's 1959, order some stuff off the menu (2008 prices) knit for a while and watch the fascinating parade of people that also eat here? It's entirely possible you'll spill ketchup on your vintage dirndl skirt, screw up your knitting pattern majorly ... but we'll have so much fun it won't matter. We knitters could even rotate the location to another old-timey eatery (Russell's Barbeque is another childhood favorite) ...but always always dressing like it's the 1950s! The attire is half-the-fun, folks. You don't have to make anything from the "Father Knows Best" era, just work on something. It could be the latest free download from Ravelry, some embroidery, a crochet 70s beret. You get the idea. I think. I hope. Leave your comments below. I'll upload a poll on the sidebar to gauge interest.

Saturday's List of Hat Links*

While I'm working at an elephant's pace on my knitted hat, I haven't touched my sewing machine in over a month. I'm not certain how the Viking Husqvarna would react if I were to turn it on now. It might give me an electric shock for ignoring it for so long, eat my fabric for lunch or to show how hurt it really feels, just rebel completely and not work at all. Really I think about sewing, and I'm disinclined to do any real-time stitching until there's a day's worth of freezing rain or snow. So there. I also love to dream about hats, and here are some great links about all things chapeaux:

* Two hats from Interweave Knits, Winter 2008.
* One man's impressive collection of hand-knitted hats. He made them all.
* Information on La Fete de Catherinettes, coming up on November 25. Warning: the link is completely in French.
* The Rutland Trail cap from Anthropologie.

* The image above? Drawn from part of my collection of fall/winter 2004 collection of playing cards from Eugenia Kim.

Thursday's Quick Hat Hits

First off, I need to know whether you wore a hat to the polls on Tuesday. I did. Specifically, I wore this knitted topper. Yes, I did what I could to make the planet a little less serious that day (I frequently like to paraphrase Monty Python: "The problem with the world today, There aren't enough people wearing hats."). I'm not sure it worked. Well, ok, I heard fireworks later that evening after 10 p.m. Maybe it was belated recognition for my millinery? Anyhow, here are some quick hat hits if you're so inclined.
1. The hat above? It's Caityquilter's. Yes, those really are zipper roses. Now you know what to do with all those old metal-edged ones you find at garage sales. I've also seen them turned into clip-ons for shoes.
2. Have you wondered where to find high-quality flat wool felt? Here's a link. Now you can make those Vogue Pattern hats. I plan on ordering some soon (the Autumn gold looks beautiful).
3. So you're not inclined to sew, knit or spider spin a hat? Here's a whole blog post on what to buy: Refinery29's 15+ hats for fall.
4. I'm actually knitting another hat, no surprise I suspect given what I've made and uploaded to date. This one's called Dizzy, and I'm the ditsy making it. I will return to sewing in good time. I'm just waiting for some crummy cold weather. It's been like summer here the past few days, hardly appropriate for lowering the presser foot and getting down to business. That I'll do in good time.

Head in the Clouds: Aqueduct Hat is Complete

I've completed my latest hat after ripping it back because I discovered it was more worthy of a baby's head than an adult. That return trip was, honestly, worth it. I think this could be my best chapeau yet! The yarn is Classic Silk, left over from the High Society Hat. Naturally, I had to buy another skein just to finish this piece of art. I stuck to the pattern save for a purl/knit/purl part that I didn't like...so I just I filled in those three of four lines of stitching with regular stockinette. I used millinery wire from Vogue Fabrics; it was thinner than the 1950s variety that I had gotten used to (I had a supply from a woman's estate). I doubled it up per Annie Modesitt's instructions in her book Knitting Millinery. I tacked it in using sewing thread (I should really try to match it to the yarn because I can still odd bits peeking out where I secured the wire to the hat). The hat feels a bit more snug than my previous works of art. At least I can be certain that it won't fly away in the wind!

Stuck in the Knitting Quagmire

It's been one of those rebellious weekends where I didn't want to sew because it was sunny and why stitch in the ditch when I could be outside basking in the sunshine knitting in the trenches? Of course, any knitting usually calls for some regressive work so all progress made in two days gets undone in a matter of hours...until you have nothing to show for your 48 hours off. Oh well, which is a long way to say that my Aqueduct hat is not nearly complete...although it was FOUR stitches from being done when I tried on the thing and found that it looked like a child's bonnet, which is not the look that I'm after. I compared my work to the picture in the Knitting Millinery book and they didn't resemble twins separated at birth. So it was off to the LYS for major frogging, and then yesterday I found I was off by one stitch, so I did some ripping on my own, and now I'm Officially Stuck because I dropped one of my markers and I'm not sure it's in the right spot and wouldn't you know the LYS is closed today and I likely will not be able to go there until Wednesday earliest, maybe Thursday to further work on the Little Hat That Could? I'm tired of it already which you know in the World of Sewing I would be more than done with whatever I was making and I would have worn it three times already. Really. I need to ignore the the weather and make some face time with the Viking Husqvarna just so I can feel like I'm finishing garments faster than a snail stuck in mud's pace.
So instead of getting a picture of my completed chapeau, you get a scan of Eugenia Kim's 2004 playing cards. Aren't they cool? You'll probably see more of these as other knitting projects get stalled like semis on the highway.

Making Progress on the Aquaduct Hat...

No sewing has occurred in this household in the past 14 days. None. Zilch. But some knitting and a whole lot of ripping has happened in the quest to use up the yarn leftover from High Society Hat no. 1. I'm making the Aquaduct Hat (seen above) from Annie Modesitt's Knitting Millinery. This has been a fantastic journey! I've learned a new stitch: the double V, which is basically slip two stitch knit-wise, knit 1, and then slip back those two slipped over the one just knitted, if that makes any sense. Anyhow, I've made steady progress, and I hope to finish this project this week. It's entirely possible since I'm making a goal of it, really. It could be something wearable in time for the book signing for "It Itches" (not my book, unfortunately, it's Franklin Habit's) or even my next hair appointment. I'm already plotting knitting project no. 4, but I really need to find something not quite so expensive as this Panda Dk yarn for the Gone with the Wind hat in "Romantic Hand Knits," but it's very difficult (in a keep my hands out of the cookie jar sort of way) to look anything not quite as pretty. Could you?