Zoids!

This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I went camping with Ryan down in Southern Oregon in between Grants Pass (where I grew up) and Medford (where most of my dad's family is).  It was so nice to escape the miserable Portland weather!  It's been hovering in the high 50s here with rain almost every day.  Down south it was mid 70s and clear blue skies every day.



This is me looking to see if the rustling noises in the grass is a snake... I hate snakes...  We did all the fun camping things like campfire with marshmallows, cooking on a little propane grill, sleep in a tent, etc.  We also drove into Ashland, Oregon to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to see Measure for Measure.  Last year I begged and begged Ryan to go with me because they were doing Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Henry V.  Sadly, we couldn't get our schedules to line up since I was working weekends and we didn't make it down.  This year, with two free weeks before starting our summer jobs we managed to make it work.  Of course, after the stellar list of plays last year, this year was more of a "B" year--Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, Henry IV Part II, and Loves Labor Lost.  This is likely why we were able to get cheap tickets just one week before the show.  Last year the cheap tickets were selling out almost a month in advance.  Even though it's not one of Shakespeare's best, Measure for Measure was very fun to see and the theater did some interesting things with the show setting it in an inner-city Latino slum. 

When I got back from camping I finished up a hat for my brother.



Why is it PINK?  Adam is a very manly man, he would never wear a pink hat, not even if his life depended on it!  That is of course... Unless it was a Zoidberg Hat.


For those of you Futurama fans screaming at your computer "You idiot!  You did it wrong! Zoidberg has FOUR mouth tentacles, not THREE!!!!"  Rest assured, there are 4 there, Adam just has his head turned weird and it's hiding.  You try telling a 21-year-old man he needs to pose for accurate knitting pictures...

The pattern I based this on is the Jackyll & Hide pattern from the Fall 2007 Knitty.  I knit the pattern as written to the crown.  Then, instead of adding the skeleton mouth, I picked up 48 stitches (24 on top, 24 on bottom) and knit in the round for about an inch.  Then I took six stitches of the top needle and six stitches of the bottom needle and knit 15 rounds followed by two rounds of K2tog then fastened off.  I repeated this 3 more times.  Wove in the ends and voila a Zoidberg hat. 

Adam has been asking me for this hat for a long time, so when I called to tell him it was finished he was understandably excited.  I told him that I accepted gratitude in the form of Chocolate.  He brought me Coco Puffs, Coco Pebbles, Chocolate granola bars, Chocolate graham cracker Goldfish, and...



I think he liked the hat...