In which trek is just in time

One of my brothers-in-law, CajunGuy, is originally from New Orleans. He works for the oil industry, going out on for weeks at a time on supply runs for the oil rigs. Sometimes, it gets really, really cold on the decks of those ships.

CajunGuy was over our house the other day and he mentioned that he had been looking for a new knit hat - the one he purchased previously was of a very scratchy wool. Did someone say, I need a hat?

Friday evening, I pulled out some lovely alpaca. It was even in his favorite color. I cast on for a JIT Hat, figuring that the purple would become the facing. Being alpaca, it would be very warm. I planned to make the outside of the hat a nice, sturdy navy wool.

CajunGuy and family came over for dessert while I was casting on. He asked what I was going to make. When I told him it was going to be a hat for him for on the ships, he looked surprised: he was very impressed that I was going to knit him a hat just because he needed one.

Fast forward to nine rounds into hat construction. That's when I realized that I'd miscounted at the cast on and one of my k3, p1 rib sections was actually a k2, p1. Argh.

Of course, I ripped it out and since I was working with two strands of dk weight alpaca, of course the strands decided to become one large knot of inelastic, heathered purple fiber.

I worked diligently on the snarls for about 15 minutes before throwing in the towel. I decided that it would cost less just to buy new yarn.

I went upstairs to check on something and when I came back down, there were nine people untangling that yarn. Nine people, including two of the guys. It was like some sort of a team building exercise: they were determined to rise to the challenge and to reclaim that yarn.

And they did.

After all of the yarn was unknotted, I pulled out the yarn ball winder. I could have sold tickets. Seriously. Picture a handful of muggles plus one knitting niece standing in awe around the dining room table as I cranked the yarn onto the spool.

There were discussions on the construction of the winder and on how tidy the yarn cakes looked. CajunGuy and my brother both started rooting around in the open yarn drawer looking for more yarn for me to wind while they watched. Dudes...seriously?

After everyone left, we settled Neatnik in bed and tried to get ourselves to bed. Number Guy made it, I did not: I had a raging case of insomnia. I worked on the hat all night. I think I shall call it the Just in Time for Dawn Hat, seeing as how that's when I finished it.

My first finished object of 2009. I even took pictures in the early dawn light. They aren't really good and the photo editing isn't going so well, so no pictures today.