Terrible/Perfect

Ready to wear

I am about as unfashionable as it comes, but even I couldn't resist the collage-y goodness over at Polyvore. You search through a mind-melting array of attire, then click and drag pieces around to form outfits, like this ensemble, perfect for a day of wearing an awesome outfit around:

Around and about by Kate Harrington featuring J Crew

Items in this set:
Vivienne Westwood pants, 135 GBP
J Crew t shirt, $33
Chinese Laundry flats, $70
Alexander McQueen clutch, $1,575
LUC KIEFFER bracelet, $104

See? I have good taste. I simply lack the money, the body, and the desire to dress. I will put forward that accessorizing an otherwise casual ensemble with an Alexander McQueen clutch that costs two months' rent seems like my style, if I were to acquire one. Style, not the bag. Although the bag is fabulous.

Loopy

Until very recently, I was not a knitter. I was a person who knit, and there is an important distinction between the two.

I learned back in college, during the 2000 election, sitting around with my dorm-mates stitching a gargantuan 2-foot wide garter stitch "scarf" in baby blue and red acrylic, watching The Daily Show. I had inherited a needle roll from my mother, who must have tried knitting at some point in the 70s.

 

When it was given to me, the case was full of nothing but aluminum needles in large sizes; I think there was a US 2 in there, but then it went right up to a US 6 and beyond. I'm not exactly sure why I've kept all of them, but as you can see there are more than a couple pairs of wood and bamboo straights in there now. I love the case; I recently learned that it had been a gift to my mother from one of her best friends, one who we spent a lot of time around as children, who knit a sweater that I wore as a baby and that both of my own daughters have worn. The case is one of my most treasured possessions.

I looked up instructions on the internet for the basic knit stitch, and just did that over and over. I "finished" the garter-thing (long since in the trash, I think, and good riddance), and didn't pick up sticks again until more than two years later. That time, I figured out how to purl on a stockinette scarf that, while terrible, is still worn by my sweet husband. And I left the knitting off again, for another few years.

When I was expecting my first baby, I took it up again. I did horribly, trying to knit up sweaters for the first time, not understanding guage and yarn weight and what to do with dropped stitches and knots in the yarn and seams and all of that. I found it frustrating and my results poor, so I stopped...kind of.

For the last four years, I've picked up a project every now and again. Sometimes I could turn out a simple baby sweater polished enough to give to someone, but mostly it was a handful of lumpy, wonky garments that I didn't want to finish. Like the other crafts I dabble in, knitting was something sort of relaxing and fun, but still inscrutable and frustrating. I wasn't any good.

Again, while expecting my second baby, I got the nesting urge and started on some baby things. Which I finished (mostly). Then I knit some dishcloths for my mother's birthday (I'm not a jerk, she really loves that kind of dishcloth). And a sock. And some hats. L was born, and I had "no time", for a while, and then I picked up a little sweater I'd started for her and never totally finished...

Oh. Oh. I see.

While this has never happened to me personally, you hear stories of people who, for ages and ages, were really just friends. Then, for some reason, they look up and realize that they are utterly and completely in love with one another. That's what happened with me and knitting, quite recently.

I think it has something to do with crossing a threshold of ability. Now, I know what to do when I make a mistake, whether it's a dropped stitch that needs picking up or rows that need ripping back or a whole project that needs to be frogged and started over. I'm still not great, but I am pretty undaunted by the process. Perhaps its that confidence that has made knitting truly enjoyable, but now I am absolutely a knitter: someone who knits daily, who exults in the feeling of sitting there turning string into something useful and, potentially, beautiful and perhaps even beloved. I would even say that knitting has become something of a meditation practice, a way to become quiet and still and calm.

Which, funny that you ask, is why knitting is used as therapy. It's good for your brain. It's immensely soothing. For me, so much so that I don't mind tackling new skills. It's an exciting challenge, one that recently has resulted in much ripping and re-knitting and re-ripping, just to learn.

 

See this? It's a wildly popular (ha! you say, but it's true!) sock pattern called "Monkey", which I started last night. I already know I'm going to rip this at some point. This is a practice sock; I will knit a "real" pair once I know I won't f-up the pattern. This kind of dedication and patience is, for me, a miracle.

Someone teased me lightly about my newfound "addiction", which is pretty much what it is. The funny thing about it is that it's so incredibly common to become addicted to knitting. My partner has been a surfer in the past, and over and over I saw the addictive nature of that sport; they all wanted to be out there, doing that, all the time. It was a transcendant experience for them, and I think knitting has a similar hold on people. There must be a reverence to being held up by the ocean, to slipping along on its surface conveyed by its immutable laws of physics; it must feel good. Knitting really feels good, too. The sensation of good yarn in the hand, the soft, sweet repetitive click of the needles, watching the shape of a garment come into focus or the pattern being created by a variegated yarn. It's also exacting, and sometimes you need to undo hours of work if the thing is going to turn out right. To knit is to worship the spirit of patience.

In my parenting I need that patience, desperately.

And there is, of course, the yarn.

 

Yup, that is my organizational crisis of a supply shelf. And no, I don't have a ton of yarn (although to be truthful there is a plastic tub full of cotton worsted, but that's just for dishcloths so that doesn't count). But along with my newfound passion for knitting has come a burning lust for good yarn:

Carys BFL Backwards Loop

Noro Kureyon Sock

more of the Malabrigo Silky Merino 

I always looked at fine yarn as an unnecessary expense, but as my knitting has improved it seems like an affordable luxury. So far I have only splashed out on two moderately-priced single skeins for small projects, but I foree a future of spending my Christmas money at the yarn shop.

What a lovely thought.

Anyway, the only issue I see with my knitting "thing" is that I don't really know other knitters. I have one knitting friend some 60 miles away, and a couple here who knit occasionally, but mostly I find myself lurking on knitting blogs and spending far too much time on Ravelry . I wish sometimes that Stephanie or Amanda were actual knitting friends of mine instead of pretend internet knitting friends. They would, I think, understand my desire to run around singing about my blossoming love as though I were in a 1952 movie musical.  

They would probably join me.

The Mathematics of Despair

My older daughter has a nasty cough and hasn't slept more than four hours for the last three nights. She vomited one time on the living room floor at 4 a.m. from gagging while coughing. The baby woke every two hours and pooped four times. Between the two of them I got one hour of sleep. We are now on our third movie of the day at 11 a.m. If I keep the hot tea flowing and the TV on, will I last until 6 p.m. before destroying the world with my laserbeam eyes?

Art work

“Most people don’t recognize opportunity when it comes,

because it’s usually dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work.”

~Thomas Edison

I feel a little awkward quoting Thomas Edison, but I think this quote encapsulates this particular moment in time for me as well as any out-of-context quote from a superficially understood historical figure can. Let me explain.

Recently I was talking to my sister about school. She is older than me, currently 31, now re-embarking on her higher education journey after 12 (!) years as a primary caregiver to three boys. She has been planning for quite some time to get a degree in nursing, which would allow her to work on a per diem basis making an excellent wage. She's thinking ahead to her sons' college expenses, to retirement, to protecting herself from financial ruin if for any reason she is no longer supported by her husband's income. Sensible.

However, my sister is a passionate, incredibly talented singer. She and I both began singing in childhood, first in a highly rigorous regional girls' choir, and then later in competitive public school choirs, private vocal performance and, for her, numerous lead female roles in musicals. She intended on studying vocal performance but detoured into childbearing, spending years focused on the intense demands of very young children. Then, only a couple years ago, she joined a community college choir, began private voice lessons again, and decided to audition for musicals in community theater.

She took off immediately. Now she is constantly engaged in lead roles for theaters all over the Puget Sound area, has performed twice in Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society productions (once as an ensemble lead), makes a great wage performing in a professional Victorian Christmas caroling group over the holidays, and is primarily enrolled in music classes at community college. She has bent over backwards and shaken up her family's routine many times to make music happen in her life.

And she's wondering if maybe, perhaps, possibly, she should pursue it.

Now, were it just her, without as partner, and three kids to support, I might have a different opinion, but this is where her story and mine intersect, and where I begin to tell my own: right now, she can do whatever the hell she wants. And so can I.

My sister's husband has a very lucrative job that supports her family comfortably, and will as long as they are married and he can work. She doesn't have to work. She has the luxury of time, where she can study music, get a degree, and build a career doing any number of things. Private voice lessons, music education, vocal performance, really whatever she wants. Talent is not holding her back, nor are resources; all she needs is the courage to take a leap into the uncertainty of "following her bliss" to go all Joseph Campbell on y'all.

And here we find me, too.

I'm big into personality tests, which should probably be some kind of indication of the kind of personality I have, and one thing that crops up constantly is that I'm constitutionally cut out for a career in art.

I mean, seriously? F-off. ART. You might as well tell me I should have a career in being a knitter of teeny tiny sweaters. My father would have looooved that. 

I went to college, like a good girl, and I kid you not, I was an art major once (declared!) and an art student once (undeclared at the no-major college I graduated from) and every time I chickened the hell out. I could never, ever accept the uncertainty of art, feel comfortable with the apparent uselessness of it. So I studied history, because...well, it was very interesting, and it seemed more solid for some bizarre reason, and because eventually I knew I could teach. 

Now I find myself, like my sister, adrift in the sea of baby piss, spit-up, and preschool mucus, the shores of future careers like distant charcoal smudges on the horizon. My degree has gone past its best-by date, and when I begin again in 5 years, my slate is virtually clean. If I had majored in art like I wanted to, I would be in no worse shape whatsoever. I gained nothing by trying to dream myself into being a different person.

When thinking about the future, I do still think I would like to teach, because I love young people and I love teaching, and that makes sense. But in the meanwhile, well...

There is an opportunity. 

I have 5 years ahead of me when I have no obligation to perform work outside the home for a wage.

I can make art. I can write. I can create. And, perhaps, I can even consider that there may be a career for me, paid work for me, following that deep impulse, that personality flaw that draws me in to looking at things the way I do.

I don't know how to say this without sounding conceited, and please don't think that's how I feel, but like my sister I don't think talent is standing in my way. The only thing standing between me and making art of some kind for a living is, as Mr. Edison says, work.

Just because I make things in my spare time, even though I deny myself sleep and sometimes my children's desires in order to have some time and space to create things, doesn't mean the path to "success" is a cakewalk. Anyone who is making a living in crafting or art or writing is busting their ass to make it happen. But, they're making it happen. It's not a totally crazy thing to consider. My sister isn't being irresponsible or even impractical by pursuing music. She's following her heart, a saccharine but apt idiom in this circumstance.

And, given that I have a roof over my head and there is food in my babes' mouths because of a hardworking, wage-earning partner, I have a rare opportunity: a moment to work on what sings to me. In my case, maturity, parenthood and the urgency of aging have given me a focus I lacked in youth. I both know more about my creative vision and realize that I need to actually schedule my creative life in order to accomplish anything beyond dabbling and the occasional pair of mittens.

If I commit to the work, I could make art. I could write a book. I could paint and write and take photographs and show my work and try to turn my impulse-driven "hobbies" into something that feeds my soul and my pocket book.

It's just that sticky "w" word. The work. But fortunately, I'm happy to say that I am getting to work.

I'm getting to work.

Pattern language

Why, hello there! Again, I am not dead (yet). I have been curled up in the warm decolletage of wool yarn and great English literature. Having discovered that audio books can be listened to while knitting or sewing or what-have-you, I can now die content: only my sad little writing practice here has suffered, and no one much suffers from that particular neglect.

SO!

Let me show you what I've been up to:

Exhibit A: Baby hat

 

Again, an uncooperative model, but you get the drift. This pixie hat pattern is suuuuuper simple and quick (I think 3 discs of Wuthering Heights) and I knit it up in the gorgeous, goth-y Malabrigo Silky Merino in the Vigo colorway. NOM. Nom nom nom. I want to eat it and absorb its supernatural powers.

The bitch about this hat is that I FREAKING LOST IT. Like 2 days after I knit most of it. I hadn't even knit on the tie band yet. 

So:

 

If you see the above hat on a baby that isn't mine, snatch it off its head and make a run for it. I really want it back.

Moving on.

Exhibit B: Oo la la!

 

It's a dinner plate cozy!

Just kidding. It's a beret that I'm blocking on a dinner plate.

My mom was just in town and requested that I knit her a beret, to which I said "What the hell? You live in Arizona." She claims that it gets very cold at night down there and she will wear it five months out of the year, to which I say "You crazy." But who am I to turn down a knitting project?

This was another very quick knit, done over about four discs of Jane Eyre (for the rest of these books on CD was knitting various other projects that I ended up frogging, either because they were practice pieces or because I've grown quite picky about my results). This is Berroco Ultra Alpaca which is just lovely. Fortunately I'm not really a dinner plate cozy person or I'd want to keep it.

I'm a bit skeptical about the pattern, which at guage results in a rather small beret. I do have a massive head, and the piece wasn't blocked yet, but it's more like a skull cap:

You like my attempt at self-portraiture? Well, neither do I.

Anyway, there you have it. I'm wondering if it might be time to ease up on the audio books, because this morning my 4 year-old got up and asked me to put on "Annana Karenina". After she gave her father a detailed account of Jane Eyre's three days as a penniless vagrant I figured my daytime snatches of knitting should probably be narrated by somewhat more juvenile material, with less house fires, dashing of brains on the pavement and men with eye patches and hooks for hands. That's how Mr. Rochester ended up, right? Or maybe that's just me...    

Terminal of Terror: A Cautionary Tale for Those Without Cell Phones

Today I had the day from hell, which began with the simple plan to pick my mother up at 10:30 from the airport, which is an hour's drive away without traffic, and bring her back to my town in time for lunch. It started out alright, but ended...well, you may wish to reach for the Valium, the prophylactics, or both if that suits your fancy:

7 a.m.: Wake up with girls, dress, eat breakfast; older girl dresses in overalls and rain boots, insists on being referred to as "Fern" and brings along stuffed pig named Wilbur

9:15 a.m.: Leave for airport in a timely fashion

10:20 a.m.: arrive at airport and find that parking is unusually scarce; park at opposite end of terminal from the airline; decide that the walk will do everyone some good, and decide to carry the baby in arms instead of use the carrier (since we will be in and out)

10:25 a.m.: discover that there is no direct flight from Phoenix on the airline my mother told me she was flying; flight number is now meaningless

10:30 a.m.: wait by the most likely gate, with older girl growing increasingly anxious and irritable/irritating; introduces herself to passersby as "Fern Arable"; I regret decision to carry baby

11:00 a.m.: grow concerned; decide to head down to baggage claim and alternate arrival area

11:20 a.m.: walk half the length of terminal looking for someone to ask for help; find woman working for the airline I was told would be used; there is no record of my mother on any of their 10 a.m.-ish flights; likely alternate airline is suggested

11:30 a.m.: wait at baggage claim area for most likely flight; stand in line at baggage assistance for 5 minutes, am told that everyone from that flight has come and gone; am told to go upstairs to ticket counter to have my mother paged; child asks for 50th time when we will see Grammy; child clearly thinks I am causing all of this

11:40 a.m.: wait 20 minutes for single ticketing employee to sell tickets to a walk-up customer; tell child to stop pulling on line markers for 10th time; am told that my mother is booked for a flight that won't be arriving until 4:30 p.m.

12:00 p.m.: borrow stranger's cell phone; call mother; confirm missed flight and intended arrival nearly 5 hours from now

12:01 p.m.: head explodes

12:05 p.m.: traverse entire terminal, go up elevator, across bridge, into parking garage; daughter asks where Wilbur is; no one has Wilbur; child freaks out; I yell; man looks at me like I'm a terrible person

12:10 p.m.: cross bridge, traverse entire terminal, go down escalator, am told that man has just walked off with Wilbur "in that direction"

12:12 p.m.: am told by staff person to check lost and found, up three floors on the mezzanine level, but the elevator is broken and I will have to take the stairs

12:18 p.m.: reach mezzanine, discover lost and found is at other end of terminal; walk briskly due to mounting rage; cause child to cry because she can't keep up

12:23 p.m.: am told Wilbur is not at lost and found; check the information desk in the baggage claim area; baby smiles at everyone

12:27 p.m.: traverse terminal, walk down stairs, go down escalator; Wilbur is not at information desk; child learns that Wilbur will not be leaving with us; child freaks out

12:35 p.m.: traverse terminal, go up escalator and elevator, cross bridge; realize with chagrin that I've been in the airport for two hours after being in the car for one; remember that debit card is not in wallet; note that I have no cash; wonder if I will have to stay in the airport for next 4 1/2 hours; baby attempts open-mouthed kisses

12:45 p.m.: write check to Port of Seattle for $9

12:55 p.m.: go wrong way on highway

1:15 p.m.: arrive in Tukwila; everyone is hungry; realize that no one will take a check

1:30 p.m.: eat pizza at Target, which takes checks; baby eats pizza crust; I hang my head in shame

2:00 p.m.: walk around Target; feel bad about being bad mommy, buy child Halloween Polly Pocket; decide to spend next few hours in Barnes and Noble

2:15 p.m.: arrive at Barnes and Noble, am asked by child for Polly Pocket; remind child that she was holding it; realize that child lost unopened Polly Pocket between store and car; child freaks out; I seethe with rage; baby smiles

2:25 p.m.: sit very, very still, breathing deeply; older child looks at Barbie books; baby claps; kind soul in children's area makes small talk, empathizes with sadness over losing toys, makes me feel like a human again

2:45 p.m.: child is pulling at her butt; when asked if she needs restroom, declines; like an idiot, I wait  

2:55 p.m.: child says she needs bathroom

3:00 p.m.: while entering stall, child pauses...

3:00:02 p.m.: I frantically yank on overall clasps, child poops in pants, on floor and on toilet seat

3:00:35 p.m.: Cross stress event horizon; everything is totally fine

3:05 p.m.: realize diaper bag isn't with me; clean up mess on floor, seat and child with roughest single-ply toilet paper ever encountered; child shrieks "Oooow, my buuuutt!! Mommy you're hurting my buuutt!"; wonder why CPS SWAT team isn't descending; baby in carrier tries to bite sister's exposed and uplifted hindquarters  

3:15 p.m.: kick it in bookstore for a lifetime; think about knitting

4:15 p.m.: drive to airport

4:30 p.m.: arrive at terminal, send child to play under seats with other waiting children; receive compliments on baby and handknits; feel more or less at peace with the whole thing

4:40 p.m.: Grammy arrives; is greeted calmly/jubilantly/moistly

5:15 p.m.: drive to Target; security tape is matched to receipt and reviewed; child didn't drop item in store, which means I cannot get a new one; leave disappointed about doll and disturbed by extent of video surveillance

5:45 p.m.: eat dinner at McDonald's; baby eats french fry and yogurt parfait; this seems acceptable

7:15 p.m.: home

7:17 p.m.: wine, Malabrigo, putting Heathcliff in his grave; Grammy does entire bedtime routine for older kid, falls asleep herself

12:01 a.m.: while going to bed, baby wakes up ready to play; grin is still charming

Cardi-CAN!

Today I finished up the very first knit object that Ms. S will actually be able to wear:

...and wear it she did, after some threatening. No, really, she didn't want to put it on and I threatened that if she didn't let me take a picture of her in it we wouldn't go out. What?

 

After she got it on, and we sorted out the itching issue with a long sleeved shirt underneath, she loooved it. She (voluntarily, I swear) wore it to the big annual congregational dinner and played and played in it, and I think she looked pretty groovy. The buttons...oh, the buttons! It was kind of tough actually using those enormously delightful vintage buttons, even though I immediately knew they were The Ones (turquoise and yellow! Yes, please!), because I kind of want to retreat to a deep mountain cave with them and gurgle my devotion over countless lightless years, not stick them on an imperfectly constructed child's sweater. I still have one of them, though, and it can't have it! It's mine! My own!

The pattern called for just one button right up at the neckband, but I thought that was kind of insufficient, so I added three more and called it good. It should still be blocked, but I think I'll just wait until it's washing time and take care of shaping then. Unfortunately there are a few mistakes in the published pattern, but nothing catastrophic. Also unfortunately, I thought I'd be clever and knit the sleeves in the round, which caused some really disturbing and permanent stretching when I went to join the sleeves to the body, but whatever. For now, it fits her beautifully, and I suppose the only one who knows all of the sweater's defects is me.

I'd say this was an enjoyable project, but it's not the best designed thing I have ever knit, and I found the sleeve-stretching bit remarkably disheartening (it's no fun to see your work distorted). However, I also learned something this time around: knitting whilst listening to audio books is lovely. My heaven is now amended to include this activity, along with floating down lazy streams, frosting cupcakes and playing field sports with Jim Henson and Carl Sagan. I have made it 2/3 of the way through Wuthering Heights which is terrifying and wonderful. I'm seriously looking forward to the near-nightly pairing of classics read aloud with wool. Oh, my. 

Now...what's next? I bought the latest Knit Scene and I love this, these, and this (I actually have yet to knit something for myself, you know). But there are two babies on the way whose mums and dads would probably like handknits...and babies need less yarn. 'Cause they're small. Like hobbits.

Up, up and away

My girl is growing up incredibly quickly.

Today, wholly unbidden by me, she asked for a pen and spent a few moments making a grocery list:

 

If this looks like Klingon, here's the translation:

 

She got out a piece of scorekeeping paper from the game box, took her pen and lay down on the floor, sounding out the letters that belonged to the words she needed to write down. Sure, "bread" normally doesn't have an "H", nor is it usually written in a circle, but a couple of months ago this child wouldn't pick up a pen (or pencil or marker or crayon) at home to save her life. It seemed daunting to her, nerve-wracking and unenjoyable.

Now, she has the basics of stick figures down:

 

That is a Munchkin (blue, because the land of the Munchkins is blue) with a "queer, dome-like structure" behind it (a Munchkin house).

A few months ago I would have been crowing from the rooftops that my child knows how to read, how to sound out and write down words, that she is drawing recognizable figures, that she is smart smart smart and don't I know it.

But something has shifted pretty profoundly in the course of raising the second baby.

With my second child, I am keenly aware of the fact that I won't get any of the time back. Once she has left a phase it's gone, forever. I know what will happen with her next, and I trust it to happen when it should (and no earlier). Rushing any stage seems entirely insane; all I want to do is lie back in the stream of time with her and drift.

It's an attitude that is difficult to adopt with a firstborn. Everything they do is new to you as well as it is to them. You are constantly trying to find your footing, keep up with the shifting landscape of who they are and who you are with them, worrying that you're doing the wrong thing or not enough of the right thing, feeling frustrated and anxious and often inept.

But the second time.

The second time, you will know to pack a spare pair of underpants. You will know what a tired child looks like. You will know when to head home or grab a bite to eat. You will know that everything will work itself out. You will know that the soft down on the head will grow and grow and oh you will miss that sweet soft skin tucked under your chin. You will know that the coos will turn to babbles will turn to words will turn to sentences will turn to a nonstop narrative of stories and ideas and questions. You will know to really hear those coos. You will know to savor it, all of it, while it lasts.

Perhaps that shift in parenting, between who we are as first time parents and who we are for the subsequent children, makes a difference in who we grow up to be, perhaps not. What I am trying to do is let that shift spread out in my heart, to become more of a second child parent for my firstborn. I'm excited for her progress, but I also see the other aspect of her maturation: it's a step away, from me, from her early childhood, from one type of person and towards another. Growing is a celebration tinged with loss. There is a great gift in reading or writing or jumping or crawling, but there is also real value to not reading, not writing, not jumping, not crawling. I'm trying as a parent to honor what is right now, and trust that with encouragement, support, gentle guidance and a magnitude of love, everything will work out as it should, when it should.  

So I'm happy, and proud, that she is reading words, and writing words, and drawing pictures. It warms me to see her grow. But she's growing fast enough.

Pilot cap in situ

 

 The yarn was a lot more cooperative.

Pilot to bombardier!

I have a pretty damn bald baby, and now that it's heading into the cold season around here she really needs something on her head when we go out. I really like these, and as I was looking at them in the catalog today I had an epiphany: a pilot's cap is awesome, but what's even more awesome is a pilot's cap lined with cashmere.

 

Pretend this ball of yarn is a baby's head for a moment:

 

Now I do realize that the devil is in the details*, but this is really a prototype. I made up a pattern, made a muslin mock-up and then cut and sewed this in under three hours, and for a first attempt this is pretty serviceable. I'm sure el Bebe will wear the hell out of this.

One kind of "duh" feature about a hat that's lined like this...

...is that it's fully reversible:

 

Ta da! Two hats for the price** of one!

Here's where the whole thing gets a little vulnerable for me: I'm sort of thinking about maybe, possibly selling these? Once I get the whole thing right? 

This one used one sleeve of a felted*** 100% cashmere sweater I got at the thrift shop for $4, plus about a quarter yard of quilting cotton and some bias tape. I could easily get three more caps out of the one sweater. It's kind of a little luxury item, but very economical. I'm envisioning snapping up secondhand luxury knits left and right and spending a few hours here and there making them into caps like this. It's useful, it's cute, it's environmentally friendly (the sweater had a few small moth holes, so was definitely a cutter). There might be a market for something like that.

What do you think?

*Let's play spot the cock up: 1)knit fabrics have a wrong and a right side, which I ignored entirely, 2)the binding should have been first sewn to the outside, then blind stitched to the inside, which I clearly failed to do, 3)the binding should have been something soft and pretty, not the 50/50 poly cotton prefab crap in my sewing box, 4)I don't have a serger, so the knit fabric went all insane on me and the two pieces didn't line up properly. I made it work, but there will be some lumps and folds that the kid will feel when she has it on. To which I say: suck it up, you're the only one on the playground keeping their head warm with really expensive goat hair.

**I think probably about $3

***The sweater did NOT felt much. I guess that's normal for cashmere, I don't really know.