Fisher's hat

It seems like just a few days ago that we made it through the long series of flights to visit my family for the Holidays, and already we are back home. It was a blur of food and wine, of embraces, stories and laughter, and next thing I know I'm back home, snuggling on the couch with my little furry buddy, promising to drink water and eat salads for a while. If you are anything like me, the first grocery trip I make after a trip is filled with fruits and vegetables, enough to feed an army of... not very hungry people. I go a little overboard, and forget to include anything more substantial, going from over-eating to being hungry all day long. Luckily, not for too long, as we are headed to Mt Baker to share a cabin with good friends, wanting nothing more than powder and a hot tub to ring in the New Year.

My wish for a white Christmas was fulfilled this year, although that's pretty much where the wintery part of our trip stopped. Short of a few flakes the first two days, we got warm weather and rain, and felt strangely at home, like perhaps we never left. By some sort of miracle, we had the most seamless travelling experience, other than for the fact that we had 3 connections each way. The secret seems to be to fly the Sunday night before Christmas, and come back Saturday. The airports, especially on the way there, were almost empty. We never waited more than 20 min for security or customs. No line for coffee. 5 out of 6 flights got in early, and we were spontaneously offered seats on an earlier flight for our tightest connection. We watched many movies, and time flew, just as we did. 

Once again this year, many of my Christmas gifts were handmade. My brother was the only one in my immediate family who hadn't gotten a knitted gift yet, so I decided to make him a hat. It took some looking around the find the right pattern and yarn, my brother being very conservative, and me not wanting to simply make a ribbed hat in black wool. Which, I guess, would have pleased him. In the end, I think that I've found the perfect balance of a hat I enjoyed knitting, and that he will wear.

I chose the Fisher hat by Lindsey Felice, and made only a few modifications to the simple pattern. I wanted a smoother transition between the ribbed cable section and the knit section of the hat, so I skipped the purl row. I also knitted 18 rows instead of 20 before starting the decrease, to make it a little bit shorter. It looks pretty great on my brother, and should keep his head warm when winter comes back.