Ever since knitting a hat for Woodie Flowers at the New York City Regional competition, I’ve been thinking about what would make a good hat for Dean Kamen.

People had mentioned that he wouldn’t wear it unless it matched with his denim ensemble.  The FIRST logo is very important to him, so that was incorporated, as was his name, and of course lots of robots!

During the competition, one of our mentors wore a hole in her jeans, and we sacrificed them for the cause.  The jeans were cut lengthwise in strips about 1/4 inch wide (any thinner and the fabric will fray too much, any thicker and it will not knit properly).  The denim strips are in the stripes at the top of the hat.

Knitting the hat was the easy part.  Finding Dean Kamen on the last day of Championships proved to be much more challenging.  After the final matches on Einstein, I headed out with another mentor in search of him.  We were lucky to meet Monica, a woman who works at FIRST in New Hampshire.  She told us that Dean had already left the building, but that she would pack up the hat and card, and be sure that he got them.

Thanks Monica!  We appreciate your helpful delivery.  We’re hoping that Dean will wear the hat, and take a photo to send to us, but we realize he’s a busy guy.

To see more of what we did at our competition, and to see the FIRST build season in a nutshell tune in to CNN, they’re airing a special about education and how special FIRST is.

Heading to St. Louis (19 hours on a bus) was great for sleeping and knitting.  The weather was stormy, and it was hard to see the arch as we approached.

This hat, number 50 was intended for Morgan Freeman…but we never ended up seeing him or hearing him at the competition.  Hat 50 will be repurposed for someone else sometime soon.

Hat 51 was created in the stands at the World Championships.We had an exciting time playing with and against the best robots in the world.  We met some of our old friends, and made new ones.

It turns out that several teams knit hats!  I’d like to think ours are the most unique out there, but I challenge all other teams to engineer creative hats for themselves.

We saw ASIMO the robot from Honda that can climb stairs, run, walk, and stand on one foot (as seen above).  It was such a great demonstration of highly skilled engineering and design.

Captain Canada and I had a walk and saw the arch in the sunshine…. and later in the trip we all were treated to a concert by the Black Eyed Peas.

It was an exciting time for all of us!

Before I knew it, hat 51 was complete!  The needles didn’t sit idle for long.  A hat for Dean Kamen was the next on the agenda.

Last week, in New York with K-Botics, we met a man named Woodie Flowers.  He’s an important founding member and mentor for the FIRST robotics organization.  He models “G.P” (gracious professionalism) in his interactions and encouragement for our teams.  He asked us all to sign his shirt, and he chatted with us about our team and our robot for a while.  I had thought it would be fun to make him a hat, so we asked if that would be ok.  He got out his iPhone and used the caliper tool to measure out how big his ponytail is so we’d know how big a hole to put in the hat.  What a guy!

I knit through most of the day, and ended up with a hat by the end of it!

It had GP on the back by the ponytail hole, and Woodie written across the front.

We wrote him a thank you card for being such a good example for us.

I think he was pleased to get his new hat…

What do you think?

Yarn!  It’s great for knitting hats….here’s hat #45 (2nd one this weekend)

Our robot needed some rope to pull a part loose and deploy our minibot.  We took turns making a braided rope (similar to making friendship bracelets).  It’s cool that our team yarn ended up on our robot.

The yarn was also great for games of cats cradle that kept breaking out while waiting for something to happen…

Before long there were cats cradle games in the stands too!

So be sure, when you are packing for a competition, bring along a little yarn for you and your friends.

This past weekend I was with the K-Botics team in New York City to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition.  It’s been a busy 8 weeks preparing a robot and fine tuning our team and strategy for competition.  There were ups and downs along the road but it’s all worth it when you get to competition and catch the excitement! 

Part of my job as a supervisor is to help out in the stands while others work on the robot in the pit area.  The stands are full of kids, cheering and scouting the robots as they play.  I generally bring my knitting along with me and see how many hats I can make in a weekend.  Almost everyone on the team has a hat…but this hat, hat #44 is special.  It’s not for our team.  It’s for a member of FIRST team 694, Team Stuypulse from Manhattan New York who very graciously offered to have some of our recent material order shipped to their address because it would take too long to get to Canada.  We appreciate the extra effort extended by this team, and so, to say thanks, I knit them one of our hats (in their colours).

Their logo is one of the cutest I’ve seen.  Of course we signed our thank you gift.  And I very stealthily took pictures of it being worn during practice day-a very intense day where everyone gets a lay of the land, sets up their pit area, gets their robots to pass inspection, and connect to the field.  Some robots work right away, and others take a lot longer to become functional.  Strategy gets discussed, and scouting begins.  It’s the start of a busy weekend.

We spent the rest of the competition cheering in the stands right in front of Team 694.  They are an enthusiastic group who brought vuvuzelas!  They also brought us cookies–We LOVED the cookies.  It’s great that even though we were rivals in the matches, we were friends in the stands.

What else would I be doing now that robot building season is done?  Of course I took a road trip to watch a robotics competition, and brought along my knitting!

I was lucky to be a passenger, so I had lots of time to knit.  That much knitting represents Kingston to Burlington.

It got finished during the VEX robotics competition in St. Catharine’s…and I had time to start another hat while I watched the robots battle each other for control of the stacks of rings.  It’s impressive what high school kids can do!

On the way back home today, hat 43 got finished.  It is topped off with i-cord and pompoms, and glow in the dark embroidered robot and team number.

Slowly but surely our team will be outfitted with the coolest hats in town.  We compete in New York City in 12 days.  There’s lots of knitting to be done between now and then.  There’s lots of robotic preparations to do to.  Looks like we’ll be busy for another few weeks!

Hat number one was cast on while riding the bus to Ottawa.  Knitting and bus rides are a no-brainer for me, and this fall, it seems like I’m only knitting robots!  This is the beginning of hat number 34 for K-Botics.

This hat is unique in that the robots are not all the same colours.  I attempted to work 3 colours in each row without tangling everything into a giant knot.  It’s a challenge….and I don’t know that I’d do it again.  Another issue is that with carrying colours behind the work all the time, you have to really be careful that the hat doesn’t get too tight.  I think that this one worked out alright.  It fits my head anyway.

The hat enjoyed a visit to the Canadian Currency Museum.  It’s free, and really really cool!  I recommend going next time you are in Ottawa.  The hat and I were both surprised to see a $7 bill.

The next stop was lunch and a tour of the Rideau Center and the Byward Market.  The hat got bigger over lunch, and was finished while watching a game of “cut the rope” on the i-pads at the apple store.

The hat made some friends at the market.  Someone tried to sell me a hat for $20 dollars….they said it was hand made.  I showed them my hat.  The sales man couldn’t believe that I could make a hat.  He wanted to see my tools.  I showed him the needles, but I don’t know if he was impressed or not.  He stopped trying to sell me the hat, and let me take pictures.  I tried to explain my blog, but I don’t know if he understood.

There were really cute mittens there too.  I think they can double as puppets.  A neat idea!

Back on the bus again, and I wasn’t the only one knitting.  Here’s a guy from the K-Botics team who has taught himself how to make robot hats.  What a kid.  He’s wearing one of the hats I made last year.

We were on the road again, headed for Carp Ontario, home of the Diefenbunker.  My hands were idle, and before I knew it, I had cast on for another hat.

the bomb is a replica

I knit on the sly during the tour, but was so caught up with the information being delivered that I totally forgot to take any pictures.  Coming out of the bunker, I tried, but the lighting was weird.

Pictures didn’t really turn out until I got outside again.  This hat is striped with bits and pieces of blue and purple.  It’s going to have some finishing touches added later.

The hat was finished on the bus ride home, but since I don’t travel with a bodkin with me, the embroidery will have to be completed later.  I love how every new hat is my favourite until the next one is finished!  Here’s hat number 34.

And here’s hat number 35.

looks different in daylight. I love the stripes!

I have even cast on for hat #36.  I don’t know when this obsession will end!

Today I went to Ottawa with a group of high school students.  On the way I started knitting a robot hat.  It is our goal that each member of the robotics team I mentor will have a one-of-a-kind hat knit in our team colours.  They are quite a conversation piece at competitions and also around the halls at school.

By the time our bus got to the Ottawa War Museum, I had finished the robot stranded knitting section, and was moving on to improvise the rest of the hat.

War Museum

We toured the War Museum, seeing artifacts from many different wars, including Hitler’s car.

We met several veterans and heard many stories of their life on the front lines.  This man was telling us that as an airman he needed to wear three pairs of mittens.  The inner pair was silk, the next was wool, and the last was some kind of animal hide.  He said that it was very cold, but he needed to use his fingers, so by removing one or two layers he could do what he needed to do and still keep his hands warm.  It was touching to see how the students enjoyed chatting with the veterans, and how much the veterans wanted to share their stories with this young generation, so far removed from war.

In the World War I section of the museum, it showed how women used to knit socks for soldiers fighting overseas.  It is common for knitters nowadays to knit helmet liners for the troops.

I was surprised when I came across a display of knitted and crocheted dolls called Izzy Dolls (pattern, and information on how to send your completed dolls).  Each doll is given to a child in a war torn area by soldiers and peace keepers.  Each doll has a card attached with the following message:

“IZZY DOLL”, Made for you with love, in memory of MARK ISFELD,
killed near Kakma, Croatia 21 Jun 1994, removing landmines
serving with 1 Combat engineer Regiment, Canadian Engineers.

After the war museum, we headed to Parliament to get a tour, and then attend Question Period in the House of Commons.

The details of our Parliament buildings always astonish me.  Today I was fascinated by the carved unicorn at the entrance.

I knit outside while waiting for our group tour to begin.  People were taking bets on whether my needles would be confiscated when we went through the initial security screening.  Lucky for me, they were allowed!  So, I was able to knit in line to the top of the Peace Tower, and I was able to knit through lunch too.

Here’s what I had done by the time we got into the Senate chambers.  Later on in the afternoon we were able to attend Question Period, where the Opposition members questioned the Government about all manner of current events.  To get into the House of Commons Gallery, you need to pass through another layer of security, where cameras, phones, pens/pencils, big belt buckles, bags, and…yes…knitting gets confiscated and kept in safe keeping until you exit.  I had never seen our Government in session before, and although the Prime Minister was not there, the other party leaders were, and there was a very lively debate.

I kept knitting on the bus as we left Ottawa.  By the time we stopped for an emergency snack/washroom break the hat was complete!

Here’s Joy wearing her hat.  I love the fact that it is almost like a wizard hat, a little crumpled, but with definite character.

Basic Stats (mostly for my own recall later):  Cast On 100 sts, work K2P2 ribbing with stripes.  Work team number and robot chart.  Work stripes again.  Begin to decrease (K8, K2tog).  Every 5th row work decreases.  Alternate stripes as desired.

Our bus ran into a lot of slow traffic on our way home.  I’m already done 1.5 inches of hat number 2.  It certainly was a productive, and interesting day.

One month ago today….

I was on vacation, meeting alpaca.

and dyeing roving on the fire.

Today I’d like to present to you the result of all that spinning

I have completed a pair of mittens for Evan (my traveling buddy) to commemorate our adventure, and remind him of his introduction into the crazy world of fiber arts.  (He spun the white fleece on a drop spindle at our campsite)

The mittens have 2010 on the cuff (palm side) and on the back of the wrist they have alpacas!

All of the black stranded colourwork is done with alpaca that I bought on our trip.  This means that the inside of the cuff is extremely soft and fluffy.

I like how all of the colours stripe and blend together.  The mittens don’t match perfectly, but I think that adds to the charm.  They are one of a kind, and will be making their way to Providence this fall for his birthday!

While on vacation Evan and I spent a lovely day in Salem Massachusetts.  We saw the historic village, saw lots of thatched roofed houses, learned a lot of American history, and of course, I was drawn as if by gravity to the room with the spinning supplies! 

There were hand cards, drop spindles, knitting stuffed into baskets of hand spun yarn, and in the back corner of the room was the spinning wheel.  I asked the woman in period costume about all of these artifacts, and she had no idea how to use any of them.  It was such a shame….she could have been sitting and spinning all day long!

There weren’t any other tourists there, so I took a moment and showed the woman how to use the drop spindle.  I don’t know that she was all that interested, but she humoured me as I took pictures of her set up.

Here’s Evan in the stocks–he escaped soon afterward.

After wandering historic Salem, Evan and I went to Seed Stitch Fine Yarn.  This wasn’t exactly a random event.  I had planned the mission for a very special purpose which unfortunately I can’t quite reveal just yet.  Poor Evan got dragged along, but seemed not to mind so much.  He had never been to a yarn store before….except on Martha’s Vineyard where we saw the alpacas.

seed stitch fine yarn

What a friendly colourful place this is.  We were greeted right away, and given a bit of a tour.  There are so many yarns that I can’t seem to find in Kingston, but I’ve heard about them on Ravelry.  It’s nice to be able to feel what they are like, and see the range of colours.  There are comfy chairs and a work table, patterns to browse, and SO MUCH YARN!  If you are in the Salem area, go visit.  If you are nowhere close to Salem…go to their website!  (free shipping in the states if you spend more than $75)

"it's so fluffy I'm gonna die!"

Evan went looking around and….he found alpaca yarn!  What a guy….

display

I was very impressed at the creative display in the entry to the store.  Most of what you see is knit.  I like the little knit lobster, and the yarn in the mason jars.  It’s such a perfect combination of summer colours.

My purchase will be revealed later once my project is complete…

Across the street from the yarn store was a pretty awesome looking ice cream store, but we were already stuffed, so we kept walking around the small side streets, and we ran into something pretty cool.  We ran into Michael Allocca (etsy), who was making chain maille baby clothing!

The interlocking rings were aluminum and rubber, so the finished garment will be light and stretchy.  Such a neat idea.

We watched for a while, and it looked like a fairly easy process….link rings together….but I’m sure that if I tried it, I’d just end up with a tangled mess and lots of rings on the floor.  I’m impressed with his talent and creativity.  I think it looks a bit like knitting….what do you think?

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