Me: "Gosh, the weather's getting cooler, I think I'll knit someth--"
Jack: "MAKE ME A HAT."
Me: "Well, actually, I was hoping to make a pair of socks, with Angela as my guiding star, but, sure, I'll make a hat!
Jack: "WITH STRIPES."
I have three boxes of thirty-year-old yarn in my closet because my mother, bless her double-pointed size 6 bamboo needles, had a lifelong habit of buying more yarn than she could, in this lifetime, pay attention long enough to turn into all the things her family pleaded for her to make for them (my gear head brother's dream afghan with a picture of a Corvette knitted into the center, which she never finished, has, in the fullness of time, evolved from a jumping-off point for adolescent vexation into an amusing middle-aged anecdote). Three boxes was all I could fit in my suitcase from the last time I visited. Yes, my mom's bedridden and elderly and can no longer prevent me from pillaging her basement for dusty craft materials.
From her I've inherited not only the pace at which I ooze through projects (scarf = one semester; mittens = the first season of Twin Peaks, including three subsequent months of nightmares; sweater = the time between getting hired and getting fired from my last job) but also the delusion that Hey, if I just knit for twenty minutes a day a month, I'll be done in no time!
For Jack's hat I'm using Bernat Blarney Spun something or other, straight from Ireland because when Jack looks at the sun he sneezes Guinness. The yarn's oatmeal-colored because Jack is an autumn, and the stripe(s) are from what I had leftover after making him this sweater. Unfortnuately, the Bernat is "weather proof" which makes it nice and scratchy, but I'm hoping that after a few hand-washings and a good soaking in hair conditioner it will soften up some. If not, he'll soon find a lovingly hand-knit steel wool football helmet under the tree.