The Road to Recovery?

I think I might be getting better you know. I have managed to get through today without recourse to either cough syrup or paracetamol, and on top of that I have managed to do some work. So tomorrow morning I proof read my brand spanking new thesis introduction which I have written over the weekend and then bang it off to the Director of Studies, who can if she  wishes, forward it to the Men in Aberdeen ad Glasgow. I am past caring either way, I doubt I'll change it whatever they say, and after a bit of a rest from it tomorrow on Tuesday I'll be back, knocking up (or at least starting to) a chapter on the differences between schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder (both versions), why they apparently couldn't tell them apart in 1947, and the benefits BPD sometimes confers on the creative mind - not that that makes it, to my way of thinking, any more bearable. But then I'm not a creative writer, or a BPD sufferer, so what do I know?

I am however a long time knitter although sometimes it seems as though I know nothing about that either. I believe I mentioned en passant somewhere  here that this year was dedicated to the knitting up of things that have hung around unfinished, or even unstarted, for Far Too Long.  (Yes, well, don't mention the  blanket. That was different. Naturally.)

I began with a hat and mitts kit I had asked Son No 1 to buy me several Christmases ago from a wool mill in Maine. I've pulled it out to knit a few times over the years but always put it back again pretty damn quick because it had a decorative I-cord edging, and I didn't know how to do I-cord. But of course, I got that sorted with the Kate Davies tea cosy so I had no more excuses. I wasn't looking for them actually, it's a lovely design and I did really want to knit it. 

The construction was quite different to anything I've done by way of a hat before, although knit in the round which is how I like to do hats. The only trouble was that when it was finished it was a bit big. It didn't fall off, but equally it didn't cling to my head, and given that a good third of the knitting was constructing a rib lining to make it do exactly that, that was a bit disappointing. I thought it might improve with blocking, but it didn't. It got bigger. It now resembled an upturned bulb bowl and was very loose. 

I wasn't sure what to do next, as everything I could think of to try ran the risk of making matters worse and I was more than a bit disgruntled that my first effort to tick off a kit for the year was going to come to naught. In the end I decided I had nothing to lose; the effort had already been put in, I didn't have a wearable hat, the wort that could happen was that I would end up with a still unwearable hat, and gritting my teeth I threw the thing into the bathroom sink ad covered it with two kettlefuls of boiling water and left it to cool. 

I was prepared for this somewhat cavalier treatment to shrink the thing to child or even doll size. I had even passed under rapid mental  review the ages of all the girl children I know to whom it might be gifted. What I was not prepared for was for it to be bigger then ever!! It now covered half my face. In desperation I stuck it in the washing machine on the hottest wash it does and do you know what? it came out the perfect size. It really did. It's the teeniest smidgin felted but I don't care. It fits and I will wear it, and if you've got this far - here's the picture