Pajunkissa

I am still mesmerized by this hat’s beautiful name. I just looked it up, and it appears to mean “catkin”. Then I had to look up catkin. :) Wikipedia says it’s a cylindrical flower cluster (and shows some nice pictures, though I can only barely relate them to the pattern).

The original pattern was created by Memmu for Ulla, a Finnish online knitting magazine made by Finnish knitters for Finnish knitters, if I understand correctly.

However, I fell in love with it when I saw Handepande’s version: take a look here and try to resist the urge to cast on immediately! My hat was based on Handepande’s modifications to the original pattern, which were essentially just a change in gauge. You’ll find them on the project Ravelry page.

I personally cast on after I offered to knit a hat for a friend and she chose this pattern, based on seeing the photo of Handepande’s project. There was even a “Scandinavian connection” since I started working on the hat while in Norway last summer. During the class presentations at my summer course, I would sit back and knit away, listening to the presenters. My (about to retire) professor Jan couldn’t help but recall the ’60s, when apparently it was quite usual for his female students to knit in class. The story as he told it to us took an interesting turn, however, when the male students also decided to take up this hobby. The females were apparently offended and in protest stopped knitting in class altogether. :)

Unfortunately, the version I knit up during my classes had to be frogged – this was the first onslaught of the transfer of my usual perfectionism into knitting as well. I had simply gotten the needle size wrong, the hat came out too big, the stitches were ugly, and I just couldn’t live with giving it away in such a state. Frogged and knit again later that summer, back home. This time to my utter satisfaction. :) The pattern is super-easy and fast. And of course I made another one shortly – remember it? :)