song of the serger

Hats. Since working with Robin on our crafty adventures, I have realized that people fall into two categories - people who love hats, and people like me who would never think of wearing them. Hat people love Robin's hats, dropping everything to make a beeline for our booth once they've spotted us, same as Baxter would try his best to rush along his potty just to chase a squirrel he's spied from miles away. A primal connection that can't be stopped.

Non-hat people, my brethren, chuckle politely when offered the chance to try on a hat they've been admiring. It's just not a hurdle they're willing to leap, and I totally get it. My disinclination for hats stems from my neverending quest to maintain the miraculous creation that is my 'do. Gallons of gel, hairspray, and perm solution have graced my head since I first decided to work against what I was born with, and I'll be danged if a hat, no matter how beautiful, is gonna mess that up. No hat is going to ruin the only fight I've chosen to pick with mother nature.

A funny thing happened, though. Nobody ever told me there is a silent C in front of the world older, and that as one really does get older, the C becomes less silent. And so as I've grown older, I have indeed grown colder, which is why I found myself trying on what winter hats remained at REI this past weekend, all in anticipation of how cold it's really gonna be soon when Robin and I wander around the streets of New York City in search of all the things that fascinate us and fuel our crafty desires. Begrudgingly I entered, into the world of hats.

There is a bright side, though, to owning a winter hat. Now that I have one, I need coordinating other wear, like maybe a scarf and sweater and who knows what else. And that is how I've spent these last two days, sitting at the serger cutting up sweaters and refashioning other people's visions into my own.

My goals at first were simple enough, a scarf to keep my neck equally warm that would at least kinda go with the colors of my hat. But I can only deal with so much drama while walking the streets of New York, and losing a scarf in the city shouldn't be one of them. So I made this scarflette, a neck tube of sorts, that will I hope will be great for both wearing indoors and out. No long ends to mess with, nothing to accidentally get left behind, just a tidy vision of warmth that I hope to wear without worry.



I'd like to say I stopped there and tended to all the other things calling for my attention, but the song of the serger kept me planted in my seat long enough to finish an experiment that had been brewing in my mind forever. A refashioned men's sweater turned into a cardigan, because pullovers make me look like I've stuffed myself in a hamster tube, and I can't pull off the sausagey look as well as Baxter can. One cut up the middle of the front of the sweater, one cut off the binding on the body, and serge serge serge.



I realize it'd probably be a bit much to wear the sweater and scarf together, but that's what today is for, right? Another day, another sweater. And it all started with a hat.