take that, store bought hat...

You may remember me mentioning my nephew and his store bought, acrylic chullo style hat. And how, when I called him on it, he basically said "I don't like hand knits, I like the label on this" (yes, I'm paraphrasing, but I know him well enough to say this).

And how, his mom, my SIL basically said (again, paraphrasing) "kids want the "right" labels in order to fit in". Crap, I say.
(actually, the word in my brain was a little stronger than "crap".)

Kids learn that attitude. They aren't born with it. I understand, there is a degree of "fitting in", and clothing and other things are a big part of it. But the level to which we allow it is learned at home. Yes, my kid feels a need to fit in to an extent. And, to an extent, we allow it. He has an iPod Touch (bought with his own money), but he's not allowed to take it to school. He has numerous video game systems. He has a computer (my old laptop - nothing bought specifically for him). He has some shirts from "the" stores, but only a few. He's more about comfort than anything else.
So for my nephew to feel this way - he's learned that it's an acceptable attitude from his parents and older siblings. That's fine now, but he's in for a rude awakening when it's up to him to have to pay for things. The older nephew is finding that out now - he's almost 17, has never had a job, and has to make some post secondary decisions soon. When asked what he wants to do, he says he doesn't care what the job is, as long as the hours are good and he makes a lot of money. Yeah, when you find that, let me know - I want that job, too.

Whatever, I guess the purpose of this rant was to show off this.

I knit this between Christmas and New Years. It matches my son's parka

and he loves it. It's a Frankenstein pattern, using the basic shaping of an earflap hat pattern I found, but I changed a few things - After knitting it, I picked up stitches around the brim and knit a hem to make it lie flat.

I also picked up stitches at the top of the earflaps and knit a liner of them downwards, then when I was putting the single crochet border around the edge, I crocheted the two flaps together, making it double (for warmth), and now the earflaps don't curl. This also allowed me to sandwiched the braids between the layers.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't WANT to knit this again for my nephew. Name brand or not, I bet it cost more to make mine, simply becasue I used Zara merino, a super soft, wonderful wool, along with some Cascade (the green) for the right colour. It wasn't cheap, but then again, I don't knit to save money.

Store bought acrylic? Pah!