a little bit of winter

We've had a cold week here, at least by Florida standards.  For some of us this means full body eczema and a very exciting 24 hours with a broken furnace.  But for others, it means...

finally a reason to wear hand knits. 

The mittens I made in the fall.  I made this hat before I saw that Mason Dixon Knitting's latest book has a similar, cuter version of a flat-knit chin-tie baby aviator cap, and before I realized I could knit in the round using the magic loop technique (why am I so averse to DPNs?), and before I realized that we weren't going to have a winter this year.

I had to add the chin straps to at least slow those little hands down a bit before they pulled the hat off. I just picked up about an inch of stitches along each side of the cap, then worked garter stitch for four inches or so, then added a yarnover buttonhole on one of the straps before binding off. Easy.

My favorite part is how the straps pull the cap over his ears, creating that aviator cap / pith helmet / old fashioned football helmet look I didn't even know I was trying to achieve.