So, I know I said no creativity,

but I found some sanity this week. Greg has been home from work a lot, several looming deadlines have passed, and it’s almost like we’re on some sort of vacation. We’ve been thinking more and more about our impending move; this week Greg and I had our birthday and we went out to Benihana. We made a pact with each other that no matter what came across our plates, we would at least try it, and we tried a lot of new and unusual things. For me, it meant my first time eating shrimp (really) we had some California Rolls with wasabi and ginger (Greg had had these before, but all I have to say is seaweed = blech!), and we both tried ‘real’ sushi for the first time. Oh, and we ate our whole meal with chopsticks only (except for the soup, of course. And the birthday ice cream). So, that was fun. We really had a blast. We should be in Japan in less than two months, and that’s…pretty huge.

Anyway, this week I pulled out a ball of anonymous yarn that I got at Yarnivore on clearance; Melanie thought that it was something from Mondial, possibly Maxi. Fortunately, I had Ravelry! It’s great, because I was barely able to find anything about Mondial on the web, but on Ravelry there are pictures, a list of the yarns the brand carries, and information about them like yardage, composition, etc. As it turned out, my mystery yarn was Mondial Kross, a superbulky superwash wool that appears to be made out of 12 strands of 2-ply laceweight gently twisted together. Kind of insane, but very soft and lofty (also prone to splitting, as you might imagine).

I decided to use it to make a hat. I hate working from the brim up when I only have one small ball, so I decided to crochet it, top down. The color, sky blue, was too cheery for me to make a boring old winter hat out of it – I thought of spring. And this spring, I’m going to be in Japan, sitting between the mountains and the Pacific ocean. After a few, er, less than optimal iterations, I came up with a hat that channels the ocean, cool enough to wear when the days start warming up a little.

spring by the pacific hat

Can you see the waves? They were a little tricky to get right. Overall, I’m pleased with this hat –

spring by the pacific hat

especially the way that the open sections swirl down from the crown. I can really feel the ocean in this design, and that makes me happy.

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