Finished #2! On a Freaking Roll!

Presenting the Koolhaas Headband!  Originally a hat in Interweave Knits a few years ago, I made the hat and love the design.  The other day, I was walking to the gym and nearly lost my ears to frostbite!  It wasn't that cold (my torso was comfortable in just a fleece over my t-shirt), but the wind was whipping so much that my ears almost fell off my head before I made it the 3minute to the gym!!  Brrrr  That got me thinking that I need a warm ear band to stuff in my pocket on chilly days heading to work out.  I didn't want to crack open a new skein of yarn for just a head band, so I went stash-diving (a lot like dumpster-diving, but much more pleasant!)

The finished band.  A little thin (it barely covers my ears), but you have to accept that when you are using remnant yarn.  :)

In the midst of my stash, I stumbled across the Sublime cashmere that I made into the original Koolhaas hat (if you don't remember that episode, look here, here, and here) back a while ago.  I was thinking both 1) how gorgeous the cashmere looked in the hat, and 2) what was I going to do with this snubbin' of yarn leftover?  So, I decided to make a shortened hat, a.k.a. an earband!  I knew that I would be TOTALLY making things up as I went along (how much ribbing for edging? how many pattern repeats? will I still have enough to bind off?  should I hold in some sock yarn for flair/ added thickness?  again, how much yarn do I really have?), but I was okay with that because it really is a quick little project.

This is the test-run.  I knew I would have to knit this thing twice... unless I was going to be touched with Divine Intervention, making my guesswork freakishly accurate.  :)

John is super-cute when I have to pull something apart.  I think it started as a joke:  he would exaggerate my (usual) frustration over having to rip out stitches in order to make me laugh and not be so angry at the knitting.  But I am not sure if he knows that a lot of times it is ok to rip out stitches.  He gets very distressed when I have to start over, even something simple like a long-tailed cast on that is natural to try several times before getting right!  When I ripped out the trial head band, he looked at me like I was crazy.   :)

In case you care, I ended up only doing 2 rows of 2x2 rib on the edges, I used a US6 instead of an 8, and I did 1.5 patterns repeats from the original hat pattern.  Told you I was short on yarn!   :)