Tuesday, January 20, 2009

But it's such a great idea!

I feel old. Well, no; that's not true. I feel sad that no one except the older folks at work knew what I was talking about. Oh, let me explain.

See, I'm knitting hats for several gentlemen at work. It started with Joey looking at the Son of Stitch 'n' Bitch book and asking for the double knit Celtic beanie. Then, while knitting and subsequently abandoning (temporarily) a hat for The Roy, Hong asked me to make one for him. Then, Christian came by and asked for one. Since I'm a sucker for the boys, I am a hat knitting fool these days.

Joey's hat is easy. I'm just knitting the hat from the book but in gray and navy blue. Hong has not given me his color scheme yet, but he wants the earflap hat that was on Knitty--the one with the waves. I may try to find a different earflap hat, though, because I'm not liking that pattern so much. Which leaves me with Christian's hat. The hat he saw when he asked me to make one for him was the earflap hat, but I really like the double knit hat. Then, since he's a DJ, I had a genius--no, GENIUS--idea. I'd use the double knit pattern but incorporate the chart from a sweater in the "Son of..." book (see below).
Since Christian asked for neutral colors, gray and black, I wanted to spice it up and make the "spider" in red on both sides. Being fairly new to double knitting, I made a test swatch to see if I could pull it off. See my swatch here:
I wanted to get some opinions before I committed this to hat, so I brought it to work and asked some folks, "Does this look like a 45 adapter to you?" I received blank stares all around, followed by "What's a 45 adapter?" and "It looks like a throwing star." Okay, it looks nothing like a throwing star. But seriously? No one knows what a 45 adapter is? Are we that far removed from vinyl that people in the 25-30 year range have no clue? It made me sad because I was really excited about this hat. Christian came in later today but I didn't ask for his opinion. It would have broken my heart if the DJ didn't know.

So, what's your opinion? Should I make this hat anyway? Or, would it be safe to assume that if six other people in his age range were clueless, he will be too. It's such a great idea, I hate to abandon it. (oh, and I notice that the person who made the sweater pictured above has altered the chart a little so I'll follow their chart. It fills out the spindles more.) What do you think?

8 comments:

Funky Muffins said...

I knew what it was when I saw it.
Not because I'm young,
not because I'm old,
because I'm wicked awesome.


45s
Recognize

Natalie said...

That looks awesome! Carry on and give them young 'uns an education in coolness.

Ellen Bloom said...

Faboo! I have a silver necklace in the shape of the 45 rpm adaptor. Youngish people are always asking me if it's some sort of Asian symbol!?!?!

Proceed with the 45! I want the chart when you're done!

Nutty Brunette said...

I am in my early 30s and knew exactly what it was without reading that it was a 45 adaptor. Also, Boys II Men used it on one of their album covers or maybe it was the symbol for their clothing line. Anyway, It is awesome and you should use it because even if he doesn’t know what it is someone in his arena will and they will think it is wicked cool.

Anonymous said...

I love it. Go for it!

MonkeyGurrrrrl said...

Well, at first glance, I thought it was the radiation symbol. Or biohazard. But that is only b/c my mind works that way. After all, am *am* as old as you, and after reading "45", I *totally* can see it!

HelenaHandbag said...

It's definitely a 45 adapter. I say go for it even if you have to explain it.

Rena said...

Wow. I haven't seen one of those in 30 years! (I'm 42).

I think it's a great design, but it does indeed look like a 45 adapter. Maybe it's because of the yellow (were all adapters yellow? mine were)? If you're worried, maybe another color?

But really, I wouldn't worry about it. It also makes me think of something Tibeton.