Grandma's Notebook project 4: Snap Brim Hat

One of the fun parts of following these patterns is that I have no idea what the project will actually look like until I am done.  It is also one of the frustrating parts.  Grandma had transcribed the pattern for this hat from a "Quick and Easy Crochet" magazine from 1993.  At the end of the pattern she writes, "lightly block and fold up brim in back as seen in photo." Yet there was no picture.  I tried to follow the gauge, but I've never been too good with gauge.  The whole time I was making the hat I thought, well, some people have very large heads, maybe it will fit them. Ultimately I think it turned out ok, and I did break down and Google "snap brim hat 1993" and found the original image.  I felt like maybe the standard hat on the mannequin photo didn't do the hat justice, so I put it on and did some muggin' for the camera.  I think it appropriately captures the spirit of the Snap Brim Hat circa 1993.

Click here to download the PDF of this pattern, if you would like to make this hat yourself!

Epic Hats

It is that time of year again, time for the Staff Show.  This year I found myself scrambling to come up with something.  Although I have been busy all year crocheting enough to have made a house cozy, I realized that none of it seemed Staff Show worthy.  As I racked my brain trying to come up with something, my Darth Vader bust stared forward in silence, shrouded in a second Gilgamesh hat (the original was given as a gift to my sister).  Sure the Gilgamesh hat was all well and good, but there was something lacking...a yinless yang.

When I was a child my family would vacation in DC.  We frequently found ourselves at the Museum of Natural History where my sister and I would enjoy a little stop motion film in the Ancient Cultures section.  The film was an adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.



It made an impact on me, and I assume my sister, who seems to share my brain waves in frequently erie ways.  I was impressed by the idea of the love that grew between these two men and the beauty of a story of transformation that ends with the bitter sorrow of loss.  It spoke volumes of the human condition...which has remained true for as long as we have shared stories. 

The Gilgamesh hat needed a companion, and so the Enkidu hat was created.