yarn that speaks for itself

I've had this amazing ball of hand-dyed-and-spun yarn for months. It was made, and given to me, by my friend Valerie, which makes it even more special. I've moved it around the house, looked at it, held it, and asked it what it wanted to be, but it's been very quiet. I've loved it so much just as a ball of yarn, I was in no hurry to knit it into something else. Here it is with my great-grandmother's hand carved crochet hook. So much wonderfulness. Maybe sometimes yarn can just be yarn, at least for a while.

As the weather got colder, I started think of hats. Not just baby hats like I make for the hospital, but big hats. For me. That wind on the beach can really bite a girl's ears in the winter. So, long story short, I knitted my beautiful, most favorite yarn into a hat. I found a really easy pattern for a beret, which Rick made for his daughter (yes, he knits a bit). Here's the pattern. It's really cute! And here's my hat. Also really cute.

But, sigh... sometimes cute is not enough. Turns out the yarn was way too heavy to be this sort of hat. The floppy-slouchy top part was so top-heavy it did a funny little dance every time I moved my head, shifting from side to side in a very not chic way.

I set it aside, looked at it for a while, and decided I'd have to take it all apart (which is something I do more often than I care to admit). I thought I'd make it into a pillow. Maybe. Then just as I was ready to begin unraveling (the hat, not myself), I remembered the round pillow form I'd bought a while back. Huh. Whaddaya know. The pillow form was exactly the same size as my hat.

Finally my yarn had spoken. It did not want to be a hat. It wanted to be a pillow! Happy to not have to take it apart, I spent all of ten minutes magically transforming hat to throw pillow.

Because I didn't want white bits showing through the knit stitches, and because I needed a backing for the pillow, I solved both problems by tying a big blue bandana around the pillow form, like so...

Then I took the tassel off the hat and replaced it with a cool button that has the words, "selfmade" engraved in the surface. It seemed fitting for a pillow made of yarn that more and more seemed to have a mind of its own.

Finally, I stuffed the covered pillow form inside the hat, and that was that. I decided not to close up the back with more knitting or crochet. The back doesn't show, so why make more work for myself? Besides, this way I'll be able to take it apart to hand wash it when it needs it.

It's cute, right? And even though it sits happily on my bed right now, I suppose it could become a hat again sometimes, if it should ever be in the mood. Best of all, it's still very much like a beautiful ball of yarn, sitting there quietly, making me happy just to have it around.