Selfie with Hat

I'm not a fan of selfies. I take quite a few pictures lately but most of them are not of myself. I don't always like to look at pictures of myself and I certainly don't like the reaching and odd positioning that most selfies require. But since the Oxford English Dictionary has decided to celebrate this word, I'm going to post one. Mostly because of the hat.

I realized that in all my pictures I don't have a single one of me in this hat, which seems amazing. I love this hat. I've practically worn out this hat I've worn it so much. Jeff and I were in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and while walking, we happened upon this old dying shopping district. There were two maybe three stores left in a whole four block area. We stopped into the sporting  goods store, and I decided to buy something. After all we were on vacation and the man running the store was incredible sweet. He told us old stories about when he was a pitcher. I wish I remembered his name. I'd look him up.

I needed a new hat so I was check out his stock. And the hat you see is the one I kept coming back to. I'd look over the hundreds he had but I kept coming back to that hat. So I asked. I thought it was just an odd Boston College logo. He informed me that it was for a minor league baseball team in New York, the Brooklyn Cyclones. And I knew at that moment that I had to have it. I love minor league baseball. I love obscure teams, that people outside of the city of origin might not know. I'd certainly never heard of the Cyclones. I love that I bought a hat for a minor league NY team in Fort Lauderdale. And I loved the hat. I bought it and I've hardly taken it off since. Twice now I've had to wash it but it's still going strong, although it was blue when I bought it. I just hope that the Cyclones are still playing when the hat finally wears out. I'll need to buy another one.

Cthulhu-less

When we were at Gen Con I walked past a man wearing a knitted Cthulhu hat and thought about stopping him to ask for a picture. Now I wish I had. It was one of the best ones I've seen and I would have loved to try to find a pattern for it. And honestly I was just so excited that it wasn't a Jayne hat (we saw plenty of those). I LOVE Firefly but seriously, those hats were everywhere.

Since we've been home I have been looking for a good knitting pattern for a similar hat. In a fit of insanity I went out and bought the perfect dark green yarn to make it out of. And that's when I got stumped. All of the patterns I've found so far are either for sale (I was hoping for free), crochet, or not the style I'm looking for. I've been to hundreds of sites looking at them. Years ago I found one where the tentacles rolled up into the brim. I'd love to find that again.

And to make things worse, I'm not excited about starting anything else until I can do my Cthulhu hat. I'm obsessed. The one pattern that was close, turned out to be crochet even though it was listed as knit. So I'm stumped. But I think I'll just start on that sweater I've been meaning to knit. By the time I finish that I'll either have found the perfect pattern, or forgot that there is such a thing as a Cthulhu hat.

This one is the closest I've found

Knitting Night

Wednesday's are knitting nights so I don't have a ton of time to post. I have so many knitting projects going right now that they're taking up most of my free time. I have a couple projects that I'm working on for Christmas or right after so I've been a bit rushed. But I'm not complaining. I've been a knitting fool recently and loving it.

And I'm incredibly excited to announce that I have a new niece or nephew coming. Congrats guys! So I'll have a baby project to work on as well. But that's not until June. I'm thinking a hat and booties might be out at that time of year. Baby swimwear anyone? :-)

But I figured I'd share my winter weather gear since the below zero temps today made sure I brought it out. About a year and a half ago I ended up out at this amazing yarn store and picked up some gorgeous blue merino wool. It was the nicest wool I had bought for myself at the time. I decided to celebrate by knitting myself mittens. My first pair of mittens to be exact. They came out...strange. Kind of wonky and odd, but they are warm and soft and I still wear them. I took the leftover yarn and knit myself a hat. It's a bit big but I love it. And when I still had most of a ball leftover I knit a lacy little scarf. The pattern doesn't come out perfectly in the picture but it's a great (and easy) pattern. That's the great part about knitting. Even if the pattern seems hard, most of the time with a little patience, you can learn anything.

Book Review and News

News first before I get to the book review. First and foremost on a personal level. I spent a good chunk of time this evening finishing my first hat. It's not perfect, it's not even good, (it's a little big) but I'll wear it with pride. My plan is to do a hat and scarf combination and have them ready to go for next winter. Hat down, scarf should take me a couple of months with how slow I knit.  The hat cost me a skein of yarn and a couple hours of work, but I've never been prouder. Well anyway, here is my new hat. 

In different news, some of my readers have found this blog through BigRedKitty's excellent blog. I am gladdened and saddened to hear that he is throwing in the towel. Saddened because I won't have his incredibly entertaining writing to cheer me each morning. Even not being a hunter I enjoyed his in game and out of game stories. His self-depreciating humor and witty turn of phrase made him one of the most popular WoW blogs out there. But I'm gladdened because he made the decision for the right reason. He has figured out that he's spending too much time playing WoW, and writing about WoW, and has been neglecting his family. As much as I enjoy the game, real life takes precedence. So I salute him for making the tough choice but for making it for the right reasons. 

And now to the book review. As I mentioned I've been interested in birding lately. That extends to my reading as well. So when I was in the library and spotted "A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All" by Luke Dempsey I had to pick it up. I'm glad I did. This is an entertaining read partially for the journeys and the birds seen. This book sent me to the Cornell University Lab for Ornithology multiple times. After reading about the rare birds they were searching for I would go to the website to see pictures and learn more about the species. 

The three mad birders in the title are just that. The book followed the author along with two rather unique friends as they travel across the country birding. There are trips to Texas, Michigan, Florida, Washington, and Arizona, to name a few. Dempsey mixes a good conservation message with sheer love of birds. As he mentions, they are not listers, but they want to see as many species as they can. But, like me, he is not willing to leave a beautiful bird just to make another checkmark on his list. The love and respect the author has for birds comes through clearly. This is part bird book, part travelogue, and part memoir. And it's all interesting.