What comes to mind when you look at these photos?

A) Valentine's Day!

B) A swimcap a la Esther Williams

C) A strawberry

D) Odessa?!  You poor thing, what did she do to you?

E) All of the above

Yes, but what is it, this delectable-slash-disturbing item?  Just a little Valentine's Day folly that I whipped up over the weekend, with both thanks (for a wonderful pattern) and apologies (for heinously hijacking said pattern) to Grumperina.  Thing is, I had these darling red rabillettes, and I was imagining a hat upon which they could swirl gracefully from brim to crown--and then I saw Odessa.  I have to admit that as I knitted, I was tempted to abandon the tacky aluminum hearts and work the hat as G. intended; it really is a lovely design, and the rabillettes tend to obscure rather than complement its graceful lines.  But, gosh darn it, those rabies tags sure are some silly fun!  Just ask the TS (teenaged stepdaughter), whose hat has inspired numerous comments, the best (so far) being "Does each of those come from some dead animal?"  (The answer, of course, is "No, just from my deranged ex-veterinarian stepmother.)

Notes on Odessa:  I used Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (a slightly heavier yarn than the Rowan Cashsoft DK that the pattern calls for), decreased the number of pattern repeats from 11 to 9, and got a hat with an unstretched diameter of just under 16"; it's a little tight on me, but fits my nine-year-old perfectly.  As for the rabillettes, I spaced them more widely apart than the pattern calls for, and used a technique I believe I first saw in Lily Chin's Knit & Crochet With Beads; the holes in the tags are almost 3 mm. in diameter, so I didn't have to prestring--just used a crochet hook to pull a stitch through each tag as needed.

Comments

[Scout]

OMG! That totally rocks. I love it!

[alice]

Just surfing from the odessa gallery and the thumbnail of yours jumped out - that's AMAZING. beautiful yet slightly crazy. wonderful!