Sunday, April 17, 2011

Hobbes Hat

I love Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes. I consider it, if not the best comic series ever written, then certainly among the top three (along with Charles Schulz's Peanuts and Jim Davis's Garfield). If you have never been entertained by this zany duo, here is a small introduction:


This is the first Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, printed on November 18, 1985. So began Calvin's hyperactive, curious-about-every-little-thing, and fantastic adventures trekking through the woods with his imaginary best pal, Hobbes the stuffed tiger. I've been ferociously reading this comic ever since my second grade best friend Katie Quinn introduced me to this strip:



As a fellow ADD kid sentenced to three years of brain-addling Ritalin, I sympathized with the mischevious, imaginative six-year old. I too dreamed of escaping the dreadful reality of mind-numbing math into a fatastical world of faeries and goblins, wizards, and witches...or crazed aliens like Calvin:



Wow, me and Calvin share a lot in common in our views of our elementary school principles. I can remember copying the handbook of my school in the office; I was being punished yet again for forgetting shoes, being late, wearing the wrong socks...you name it, I got written up for it. My recesses were spent standing along the yard fence, watching other children play. Imagine the inspiration I gained from Calvin, who beat them all with his own imagination! With Calvin, you could go snowsledding, travel through space; even hunt for buried treasure. Check out other fun Calvin times here. For a more in depth review of Calvin adn Hobbes and an interview with Bill Watterson, go here.

On another, slightly connected (bare with me), note, I recently crocheted my friend Lindsey a Donkey Hat. We spotted the hat on a Will and Grace episode one note, and Lindsey, delighted, demanded that I crochet it for her. I hopped on Ravelry.com (check out this amazing crochet site! if you knit or crochet, it is so worth it.) and found the pattern already written up by Angelina Bradley.



 She wrote an excellent, easy to follow pattern, and I made the hat in just three hours. However, I had some trouble attaching the ears. I was thinking over this issue and decided to make another hat to perfect the technique of attaching the ears. I wanted to make the hat my own, so I started brainstorming about other animal hats. I read some Calvin and Hobbes to get some imaginative inspiration. Then it struck me, who better than Hobbes himself? And this is the result:



Pattern coming soon!

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