Third Time's the Charm Hat Story

My maiden name is Hull. It's an English name, but Grandpa was the oldest of seven children raised by a proper German patriarch. (You can read that as Stubborn-Old-Man-Who-Knew-He-Was-Right.) Grandpa married a fine Irish girl who had her own brand of stubborness and it came down through the family. Hull stubbornness is legendary. We alternately lament it and take pride in it, and I am truly a Hull, even if I am now called Jones.

I am also an avid knitter, so the call for Hats for the State Librarian's Luncheon sent me to the yarn store. I was going to make a hat for the luncheon. I could see it -- a fine knitted fedora, sitting next to the Maltese Falcon that has resided in glory in the SEKLS office. I'd snap it's picture, just as if Sam Spade had tossed it there, then send the hat and the picture off to the luncheon.

The hat was finished two weeks ago. There was no way it would even begin to take the shape of a fedora. It had decided it was a nice warm stocking hat, and stocking hat it would be... and a rather plain, shapeless stocking hat at that. It wasn't anything I wanted to send to the luncheon.

Okay. I'd make something else. I'd make the chenille hood that I've always enjoyed wearing. Back to the yarn store, get more yarn, and I'm off and running. I carried the yarn with me to KLA Legislative Day and was spotted Knitting in Public in various places as I waited to speak to legislators. By the time I got home, I was on a roll. It was half finished. I was going to finish it before the weekend was out. I worked most of the day Saturday. It was really going good. I WAS going to have it finished before I went to bed. (Nothing quite like a goal driven stubborn Hull.) I finished it, too. At 4:00 AM. The next morning I tossed it in the washer to tidy it up. It would be ready to send off on Monday.

No. It wasn't. Something happened in the washer. Some stitches tightened up. Some hung out like Mick Jagger's tongue in a Rolling Stones logo. This was another terrible, ugly hat.

By this time, most folks would have quit knitting and bought a hat to send to the State Librarian's Luncheon. Not me. At 6:30 Sunday evening, I ripped out the hood, rewound the yarn and started over. This time it would be my classic crocheted Tam-o-Shanter. That pattern has never failed me. I finished it at 1:00 Monday morning. I'm NOT putting it in the washer to tidy up. I'm not photographing it next to the Maltese Falcon, but I am going to package it fast -- while it still looks like a Tam and send it to the State Librarian.

We Hulls are stubborn. Sometimes it pays off.