Interesting weekend. We went and saw "Batboy, the Musical," which was wonderful. If it is staged around you, I highly recommend it. We saw it at Santa Barbra City College, and the staging was superb. The entire musical is surreal, but so, so funny.

And I managed to knit muchly during the intermission and before it started. I had planed to knit during, but I found I was laughing so hard that I had to put it away. The Mate says that he had the privilege of sitting next to the person who was laughing loudest in the whole theater.

So, what else did I do?

Finished 2 different projects. Ok, finished one, and started and finished another.

First: the Hat of Very Ugly.

This is the hat. I had intended it to be a kind of elf/wizard hat, or maybe a stocking cap if I could be that patient. The color is crap in this picture.

This is the hat, tip folded over like a stocking cap. I almost kinda like it. Almost.

This is the hat with the point up.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. It looks like a multicolored condom with a reservoir tip. Ack. But, because I love you all, here’s the pattern I made up.

Brain Condom Hat

Yarn: I used crap yarn; Red Heart Worsted. I think it’d look fabulous in some other color… Like white. Needles/gauge: I used a size 5, 16” circ and some DPs I had lying around. Gauge isn’t too important.

1. Long tail CO about 133 st. This should crowd your needle up so much you can barely knit. Join, being careful not to twist. Your needle should be so crowed that you are never entirely sure that you didn’t twist.
2. Knit 2 rows, cussing.
3. Say “Fuck it” or some other epithet. K2 together around hat once. You should have 67 st, or something like that. Realize that you’ve made a ruffle. Blink, and accept that.
4. Knit a row.
5. Purl two rows for no apparent reason other than the hat turned itself inside out in your bag and you didn’t notice. Later explain that the purl rows keep the ruffle from curling.
6. Knit for approx 7 inches. Try on hat. Giggle.
7. Count your stitches and divide by a random number. I chose 6. Place a marker every 11 stitches, sneaking the extra stitch in somewhere.
8. Knit to 2 before marker, K 2 together. Repeat around hat.
9. Knit 2 rows.
10. Repeat 8 & 9.
11. Realize the hat is decreasing too fast.
12. Knit 4 rows.
13. Repeat 8.
14. Knit 3 rows.
15. Begin to decrease every row at a different marker. Doesn’t matter which one.
16. Continue decreasing until you can’t stand it any more, or you get down to 6 stitches.
17. Pull the tail through remaining stitches and tie off.
18. Try on, and realize you look like you have a condom on your head.
19. Blog about it.

Yes, well…

The second thing I did this weekend was try out a pattern from the book I bought more than a month ago, the ABCs of Making Teddy Bears.

I made the Billi bear. Now, realize that the pattern assumes you will be making said bear out of fur, and so my bear, made of flannel, is rather anemic looking.

But look at that head!

So, I’m going to make him a bigger body, and see about getting proper joints. No store in my town (that I could find) has doll joints, so I thread joined him. He looks kinda… floppy. The Mate calls him “Parkinson bear” because his head jiggles (No offence intended to anyone out there with Parkinson’s disease, or their loved ones. Just a way to describe the head jiggle.)

And, as I am typing this post, I have been informed that I will be “temporarily” laid off in two and a half weeks. Shit. Well, I’m going to go to the EDD website now….