Thank very much for the time so many of you took to respond to the last post I am not a quilter. If you didn’t subscribe to comments, I encourage you to pop back and read the reflections of other readers on identity and craft practice. They are considered and thought provoking.

This is a quiet post after the intellectual wrestling we all shared last week. A post about small things and the wayward things that happen from inattention.

The first was to be a red and white version of Oakenshield Armoured using undyed cream Gotland from Granite Haven and an odd ball of Cleckheaton Ultrafine Merino from last Christmas. This was intended for a friend and needed a slightly larger head circumference than my last one. Instead of going back to my original calculations and making the alteration there, I made the fatal mistake of plugging my own colourwork chart into another hat pattern (that I had never made before). Despite the gauge being the same, it became increasing clear that this hat was going to be too large. I ripped it out and again, instead of going back to my own calculations, I cast on the same pattern in a smaller size. My mind was overful of other things, returning to study, balancing old and new demands, you know the stuff. I think I thought I was saving time, making it easier for myself by using ready-made stitch counts/schematics instead of working it out myself. If only, I had made a little mental room, I could have saved myself many hours knitting.

It was still too big and I had run out of time to rip back again. So, the hat became a cowl. A rather cozy cowl, I think. But it is not the hat I imagined and still want to make for my friend.

The second hat, another colourwork hat was intended as a slouchy beanie. It uses overdyed grey Gotland yarn from Granite Haven and an unidentified undyed cream yarn from my stash. The size was right this time, as I went back to those original calculations! But I then I ran out of yarn for a slouchy style and had to improvise a beret to finish the hat within the available yarn.

 So there you have it, the tale of two hats that determined their own form despite my earnest yet distracted intentions.