Bicycle Boy, the post where the hat drama comes to an end.

Last year Chris mentioned that he would like me to knit him a hat with some sort of bicycle chain motif on it, and I, of course, agreed. Several terrible swatches involving cables that attempted and failed to curl, snail-like, around the hat, one completely failed cable hat, and one moderately successful fair isle later, I was still acutely dissatisfied.

But Chris rather liked the moderately okay fair isle hat and started wearing it, and whenever he did its design flaws, its pointy, too-square crown, its exaggerated pattern, its unintended stretch and floppiness, made me cringe.

So I took it away. And hid it. And told him he would soon have another, improved bicycle chain hat. That was in January 2009.

When I finished the pattern for Bluebird and forced Chris to admire it and make flattering comments about my design skills, he finally cracked and said, "HONEY, BLUEBIRD IS GREAT, BUT WHERE IS MY ******** CHAIN HAT!??????"


Here it is. The fair isle pattern is the chain, and the crown decreases mimic the chain ring.

You can make one, too! Hannah already has (thank for the test knit and edits!), for a friend who is traveling across the country by bike... you can read more here.

And you can get the pattern for $2.50 here:



P.S. I'm off to Michigan to see my family for a week as of tomorrow after work!