Best Friend

A few months ago, one of my best friends, who lives far away, sent me a picture of a ski cap she saw somewhere and asked if I could make something similar. Having learned (and fallen in love with) crocheted ribbing from Celeste's fabulous City Girl Cap pattern, I got really excited about designing something for a friend. And thus, the Best Friend Beanie was born.

A few weeks ago (still blazing summer weather in DC) my best guy friend and I did a photo shoot with all of the beanies I had made for my etsy store for Fall:

One nice thing about having Jared model is that, of course, he is a beautiful boy. He's just astoundingly photogenic. Which is almost a shame because inevitably 80% of the photos I take have me in the middle of talking or sneezing or sneering or looking dubious or are otherwise unusable, so I ruined a whole lot of good Jared pictures :)

Another nice thing is that Jared's head was made to wear beanies. I've never seen a beanie that didn't love Jared. He was actually known to some of my acquaintances as "your friend who always wears the hat." They're kind of his thing.
A few years ago I was living in St. Petersburg. I was cold and miserable and homesick as hell. I went to check my e-mail and there was a link to a video. On the video was Jared's face. "Hey Allison," he said, smiling his perma-smile, "guess what time it is?" He reached off camera, made an "are you ready??" face, and pulled on one of his ubiquitous beanies. He pointed at his head and did a dance and sang "beanieweathertimebeanieweathertime!" and laughed like he does.
That was how I knew that it was Fall back home, and also how I was reminded, yet again, how much I love my best friends.