This Malabrigo Rios knits up so nice, tight and shiny… It made me think of a mushroom before it turned into a hat. This is the colourway Purpurea and the colours are beautiful and glowing, perfect for my mother.
I was actually knitting a hat for my father in grey Rowan cotton. Simple and subdued because hip just would not become him. Cotton because it definitely won’t itch, and a hat because he has just started chemo and I wanted him to have something elegant to cover his head… Just in case. While knitting, I was thinking about my parents and how my mother has to live with the Big C as much as he does.
My stepfather came into my life when I was about five years old. They married when I was six (my sister and I wearing matching little dresses in different colours) and, with a five-year hiatus that I may or may not tell you about some day, have always been in my life. While I can remember living in my grandmother’s house with my mother and sister, I cannot remember a single moment from the time before that when my biological father still lived with us.
And if I was knitting a hat for my father, shouldn’t I be knitting one for my mother as well? So when the grey (and rather boring, I’ll admit) hat was done, I cast on another Slouchy Tuque for my mother. Okay, it looks like a toxic purple mushroom but it turned out rather nice, I promise. And purple is her favourite colour. I used to think it was utterly boring until one summer a couple of years ago, when I was working in my garden and suddenly realised that nearly every flower I had picked that spring was purple. Beautiful, glorious, glowing, multi-hued purple.
One of the craziest things about life is how things you used to think were ugly or dumb or boring can suddenly become beautiful, wonderful and amazing to you. And so, a purple hat…
A gilded yarn 