Brackett II

It was around December, and I apparently felt particularly generous with my knitting time when I spoke those words to S. Looking back, I think it was part the ratty state of the ancient hats he had been wearing all winter, part genuine kindness and a third part a delirious state brought about by an overdose of cheesy holiday commercials and, possibly, exhaustion.

Whatever it was, he took me up on the offer, so I’d better make good on it. I provided him with a selection of hat patterns that I’d be willing to knit for him. I made a pre-selection not because I wanted to control his fashion sense, but since I was the one who’d be knitting it, I wanted something that I’d actually enjoy making. During the process I found out he really isn’t into slouchy hats. It came as a surprise as he never showed any signs of distaste towards any of my slouchy headgear. By way of explanation he swears the anti-slouch feelings only regard to his own hats. Enfin, he decided on the Brackett pattern, which again was a surprise to me as I just knitted it myself and hadn’t noticed him being particularly interested in it. When he tried mine on -carefully, because my head is a tad bit smaller than his-, I had to admit though, it did suit him.

I showed him a couple of skeins I had and in the end he picked three colours that he liked – a bright yellow, a bright red and a dark green. He liked them equally and told me to pick one. I picked the dark green, solely on the basis that I had the other colours in garment quantities, which I would have to sacrifice for a hat. As he had said that he didn’t have a preference between the three, I went with practicality.

I knitted it pretty much the same as my previous Brackett, so if you are interested in the practical details you can read my post about that here. Since I had already knitted it once, and fairly recently at that, this time it was even more of a breeze to knit. I knitted it, gently blocked it, and when it was dry and it was a cold day he just took it off the drying rack and wore it right away. And then… 

…he lost it. On the first day! He tried to reassure me he was pretty sure it was still at his office, but guys, this is the guy who regularly loses and forgets stuff of fluctuating importance: from keys to presents and from pencils to that one time he lost his passport on a plane after we’d been in it for like 30 seconds (It was eventually handed back to us by a befluxed stewardess). He lost the shawl I knitted for him on the flight back on that same trip. I’m just saying, it’s not beyond the powers of this guy to loose something fast.

Luckily the stars were on our side this time and at least for now the hat will not join the impressive list of things he lost, or as he calls it, things whose “exact location is unsure”. We took the hat for pictures a bit ago when we went for a walk, on a perfect, albeit freezing, winter day. We were in a cold spell of weather again, with temperatures below 0. It was such a glorious day and everything looked so beautiful outside.

I coaxed S. into having his picture taken for my blog because we’d be out anyway and he’d be wearing the hat, I only had to bring my camera. He said he was channelling me for modelling inspiration, which I think is a profoundly bad idea in any situation, but see if you can spot my aesthetics in these pictures. I think he enjoyed it, and more importantly, I think he quite likes the hat. He’s not been going out without it -and luckily, he’s since always come back with it still with him.