The Jayne Toque & Mothers Love

The cunning hat

I have been working on a hat that has become iconic to the science fiction show Firefly; if you haven't seen it I recommend you do. Now this hat is supposed to look like the photo to the right.

The not so cunning reproduction

Unfortunately it looks like this. Now there are a number of reasons for this. I used a different weight of yarn, plus I changed from orange to yellow too soon, plus...plus-plus-plus.
The real reason is that I rushed.
I know not to rush. Rushing is the death or disfigurement of many a needlework project. It's as bad as, or worse than, starting something and then forgetting about it for 10 years ... yeah, I've done that.
You end up with parts the are uneven, sides or ends that curl, or tails that can unpredictably (well, maybe not THAT unpredictably) pull loose and pretty quickly you have a tangle of yarn rather than a hat. That has not happened and I pray it does not.
I guess I rushed because it's for my son. I haven't had the chance to make anything for my son for - oh, a long time indeed! So when he said he wanted a Jayne hat I was all over it. It was bad enough that I'd promised to make other things first. So when it finally came to being able to knit this, I couldn't do it quick enough. So, here's the deal: I'm going to give it to him, and offer to make another one closer to the "original". Regardless, I believe he knows I love him, and I guess in the end, that's the point.

!UPDATE!

Well, as you can see he just loves his hat. I cannot believe he wears it in public! See that face? Thar face is why I made it. That face is why I went through DOZENS of patterns on line, and finally knitted by the seat of my pants, to get it done. Completely worth it.