My Floppy Hat

I held a little ole photo shoot with my new hat the other morning. Do you think it looks rather large and loose? Well, that is just how I planned it. I never wore a hat past the 6th grade until my husband moved me to NYC. The whistling, whirling and bone chilling City wind converted me into a hat wearer in mere minutes. My vain streak wouldn't allow a hat anywhere near my head before then. I just hated all the static and the hair flattening. Vain, vain, vain and silly. So vain little ole me likes hats that are large and loose to cover my ears, hold the heat in and will hopefully not plaster my hair to my forehead.

Vain = Moi reminds me of how I barely ever wore socks in High School. I can remember arguing with my Mother after early morning seminary one day about how she wanted me to march back upstairs and put some socks on my feet. To defend my mother here, we were in Wisconsin with two feet of snow on the ground, below zero temps, and I was about to walk with my girlfriend Stacy the two blocks over to school through the snowy sidewalks. I looked my Mom straight in the eye and... refused. She told me I wasn't going anywhere until socks were covering my feet, end of story. Fine - I snapped as I stomped loudly back up the stairs in my oh so cool pegged jeans and white plasticy flats to my room. I didn't go to school that day.


There was one hat in my past which I adored. It was a triangular shaped, crocheted hat I wore during my elementary school days in California. My Great Aunt Lucy and her friends Helen and Madge would send us a huge box filled with knitted and crocheted items each year. There were lots of hats, mittens, scarves and even sweaters in the winter box for my brothers and sisters and I to paw over. These ladies lived in Wisconsin and they knew cold. So, their winter box was always lovingly filled with multiples of each item. All we had to do each year was trace our hands for them on paper and Mom would send these tracings off to Wisconsin for us. What I remember most from those shipments of warmth we were so lucky to receive, was the triangle hat. My sister Maggie and I wore those hats everywhere. I think we wore them to death because no trace of them can be found. They tied into a bow under our chins, covered our ears and hanging from the point in the back. were a bunch of crocheted curly cue, ringlets. I loved that hat. I felt like a princess wearing it as I ran up and down our hill, crashing about the redwoods with those crocheted ringlets bouncing and swaying from side to side.


Last year I struggled and struggled with my much beloved lavender beret which I had been wearing as my main hat for years. Cesar washed and dried it one day by mistake and the cashmere shrunk to the point that it didn't look very nice on me anymore. I didn't cover my ears anymore. I washed it and soaked it and tried my very best to stretch the fibers once more. No use. I still loved it. I kept trying to wear it. I held onto it thinking one day it would magicly grow or maybe my head would shrink and it would fit me perfectly again. I had high hopes. Last spring my niece Sofia came for a visit. She didn't have a hat. It was a windy spring here in our parts. I turned my lovely lavender beret over to her. A perfect fit.


For my new hat I chose this dark purple cashmere from School Products in the City. I began with a knitted i-cord border and picked up stitches around for the body of the hat. I also knitted eyelets up one side and partially down the other in which to thread a long tail of knitted i-cord. The knitted fabric was then cinched together a bit with the decorative braid of i-cord X's and there was just enough of the cashmere cord left over for a bow at the brim.