Are you f*cking kidding me?!?
Not comfortable with freely flowing f bombs? This post is not for you!
Consider this your trigger warning! I knit a hat with lots and lots of f*#ks and if that’s not your thing, which I totally get, maybe this isn’t the post for you! Thank you!!!!
Ok? You still with me! FUCK YEAH YOU ARE!
After I finished the Knitting is the Saving of Life hat, I knew I wasn’t finished with knitting words on Musselburghs. (Lol! See what I did there?!? 😂😂😂)
While I was knitting the first hat, I contemplated doing something different on the reverse side - something angrier and more in line with the absolute fuckery happening in my life right now - and really all our lives - but I’ve got a lot going on at home too and while I absolute loved knitting is the saving of life, it’s not really where my mind is at.
Enter my FUCK hat. I knew I was going to knit another hat as soon as I bound off and I knew it was going to hold all my rage and sadness and frustration and grief and EVERYTHING so I knew it would have at least one fuck sprinkled in there. I swear like a proverbial sailor and if you know me in real life, you know that pretty much every third word is fuck.
The first thing I did was start collecting words and phrases.
To make sure I wasn’t missing anything, I solicited feedback from my husband, friends, even my kids. (There is nothing much I love more as a mom than having kids that know how to drop a good fuck into a conversation. Makes me so proud!)
Then I started charting again in the Stitchmastery program. It went a lot faster because I knew what I was doing this time and could cut and paste fairly easily. I didn’t worry too much about how the join was going to look and added fillers where I needed too. My goal was that most of the words would fit within the rounds.
For this hat I used my beloved Gauge Dye Works (of course) in Merino Twisted Fingering. The colored yarn is a Studio Seconds version of the Seventy-Six colorway which worked out really well because the stripes are varying sizes. i think it made more of a cohesive background for the words that way as opposed to a clearly defined stripe. And I used Cream for the words. (For anyone curious, I knit Merino Twisted with size 3 needles, and go up to 5s for the colorwork.)
I also decided, since I had a larger than normal skein (115 g) that I was going to cut around one colors that wouldn’t work so well - like the yellows. And I also decided that one side of the hat would be one group of colors and the other side would be different. It worked out great!
I also decided that I wanted to switch up some of the phrases on the second side - add some things that I missed the first time around like ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? And FUCKFEST. Important stuff like that.
I’m not going to lie - when I knew this hat was coming to an end I got really really sad. It’s hard to explain how good it felt to knit all these words into existence. About as good as it does to scream them at the top of my lungs! And once again the juxtaposition of gorgeous, vibrant yarn and FUCKS really did give me life! One of the most enjoyable projects I’ve ever knit. And not even because it was the last one I knit. I swear.
When I was steaming the hat a bit to open up the stitches, I found a bunch of mistakes on the second side of the hat. Can you say instant stomach ache? And because of the nature of the Musselburgh (a tube folded into itself) I can’t even duplicate stitch the mistakes out. I guess that’s what happens when you get so into a project and you are channeling all your emotions into it and inevitably things get sloppy. That’s what life is and I’m trying to embrace it. So the hat has mistakes.
But lucky for me I have a ton more yarn so I’m going to knit the hat again just like the first because SURPRISE SURPRISE I still have all kinds of rage and sadness and grief and frustration. Oops!
I’ve also decided I’m going to knit an infinity cowl with all of these same phrases. I have lots of Gauge yarn in worsted weight and I just ordered some Tosh Vintage in Natural for the letters. I don’t see myself running out of energy for knitting the word fuck over and over again anytime soon. And I just love the contrast of the vivid colors and the words so full of everything.
I’m also going to chart the words and phrases to share with anyone interested. I’m just going to chart them as words and separate phrases - not as a pattern. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to sell it and donate everything to groups that desperately need our help in the US right now or if I’m just going to give it away. There’s been a lot of interest so hopefully that’s something to look forward to.
I sincerely hope you are finding your moments of joy in these very troubling and scary times. Joy is how we beat them! We need to find it anyway way we can! Even if it’s knitting fucks!
I’m going to end with a video of me saying fuck lots of times for good measure. I fucking love you all!
Stuff I’m thinking about:
- today is walk number 986. Getting it in before the snow. Sigh. I’m beginning to hate the winter
- finally started strength training again! I’m doing the Rebecca Kennedy 4 Day Split + Hike on Peloton. Except I’m just doing the strength training and subbing in my walks for the hike part. I’m one week in and hope to do it for 6-8 weeks. I’m januaryone on Peloton if you want to friend me.
- My oldest and I are watching Shogun on Hulu and we love it! We have one episode left but are taking some time recover from the last one. Whew!!!
- I finished RENTAL HOUSE by Weike Wang this week and I definitely liked the writing and I’m glad I read it. Searching for a new book to start asap.
- the last song I added to my Spotify Liked Songs is
The hat is fanfuckingtastic! And it’s even more meaningful because you fucked it up a little😜😘
The fucking mistakes are just another oh fuck it. I couldn’t love this more. Write up the pattern! Work with a yarn dyer. I will gladly test it for you. If not I will buy it. Price it high. Donations are fucking awesome.