The Knitting Fiend

 
Silly pom pom hat.
Intelligent knitters know
silly is classic.
 

 

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Wow, a near record number of comments (for me) after I wrote a haiku about a magknits pattern!

Ok… they weren’t triggered so much by the haiku, but my inaccurate observation in comments. I have now learned the designers in that issue were not hawking their own specialty yarns. Magknits came up with the idea to highlight handspun yarn — which is actually a rather good idea. After all, beginning spinners do hanker for patterns to use up and show off their first batch of homespun.

Now, I will returning to the safety of writing haikus to comment on older patterns . . . I bring you head gear from 1969.

Knitters younger than I are probably thinking “Who would wear that thing?!¹“What kitschy fun; I want to knit that!”² “What a remarkably large pom pom!”

Knitters as old as I know this pom pom is small and dainty. My mom used to have hat patterns with pom poms literally the size of your head!

I saw the magazine and begged Mom to attach a huge pom pom to my hat. She decreed pom poms were a waste of yarn. I secretly suspected she just thought the pom poms were ugly! Either way, I knew arguing was futile: I was not going to convince her to buy yarn in my preferred extremely gaudy colors to create a pom pom as big as my head.

(I know, I know. You side with Mom on this. She reads this blog. You are allowed to leave comments supporting her decision.)

Oh, in case any of you are wondering about the colors of this hat: Classic red and white. I was kind of hoping to discover it was yellow jacket black and yellow! In fifth grade thatwould have been the hat of my dreams!

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From “The Workbasket”, Feb. 1969

1. Answer: The really cool girls were wearing this when I was in 4th and 5th grade.
2. If a someone is thinking this, I could write a calculator for this classic hat. That someone must promise to knit it (preferably in really gaudy rainbow colors), and send me a photo of someone wearing the hat. Then, who knows? I may write a haiku.