The road to perfect head wear...

Today Ian's parents came visiting, bringing all manner of lovelies in their bags...and for me a particularly wonderful and most unexpected one. A while ago I had happened to see the perfect hat on Jane's Yarnstorm blog...it was love. I followed her link to the pattern that it had been created from in a frenzy of premature triple-clicking on my mouse (a habit that Mr Teacakes often chastises me for) as the page slowly loaded. And what delights I found there - the Kim Hargreaves website is wonderful, although unfortunately this only left me even more pained by the fact that my knitting has not progressed past knit one, pearl one. Luckily my mother-in-law is quite wonderful with the needles and was most agreeable to making me one up for next Christmas...so how delightful to be handed a mysterious and unexpected lovely white box today, tied up with ribbed white ribbon...and on opening it to find lovely white folds of crinkly tissue paper hiding an early Christmas present. I am quite in love with it, and my kind mother-in-law has told me that now she has the pattern she is quite happy to make it up in any other colours that it might be needed in (well, that would be one to compliment every colour of outerwear...but I feel that I must rein myself in if her poor fingers are not to be worn away to little wafers).

The pattern even came with a lovely little label to be stitched inside the hat.

It is such a relief to have this hat in my collection now. I find waterproof jackets most upsetting garments to wear, and instead choose to wear a black wool coat that is perfect for protecting one from even the heaviest of downpours as long as one has on suitable head wear (umbrellas being a troublesome accessory when pram-pushing). The Christmas before last, Mr Teacakes bought me the most perfect black angora flowerpot-style hat, that is lovely to wear (doubly so, because clothing feels so much more special when chosen by someone other than the wearer, as though one is walking around wrapped in a particularly lovely cuddle from the giver)...but unfortunately the wearing of it does require very specific weather conditions: any amount of rain is fine, but it must fall without even the slightest hint of a gust of wind or it is off, flying across roads and leading me on wild hat-retrieval missions as the children stand watching open-mouthed.

I knew that a Plan B in my hat wardrobe was necessary when the day came that weather conditions were so severe that I was forced to admit defeat and put on a black waterproof jacket with integral hood....Plan B's finest points are: woolen to repel the rain; a thick band that will keep it firmly in place even in a gale; and roomy enough to contain all my hair should such a thing be necessary (although there's so much less of it now, that this has ceased to be such a problem in hat-buying).

What more could a girl wish for? Bring on the rain! x