Turn the brim up and it’s a watch cap, turn it down and it’s a slouch, and with its completely reversible stitch pattern it’s 4 hats in 1!

My brilliant and talented friend David Herendeen and I first became friends back in the mid-eighties when we were both struggling artists paying the bills by working in a NYC bookstore. He was an up and coming opera singer, and I was the lead singer in a rock band and just beginning to dip my toes into knitting design. We became instant best friends over our shared love of books, and over the 35+ years since then we have seen each other through the ups and downs that life has thrown in our paths, and although we have spent the intervening years living hundreds (and at times thousands!) of miles apart our friendship has stayed strong.

My rock n’ roll days are over and David is now a professor at the University of Oklahoma. A while back he asked me if I would knit him a hat, and this pattern is what I came up with. Since David and I have both spent time enjoying the transformative life of a performer, a hat that could transform itself into 4 different looks seemed appropriate, and the textured stitches spoke to me of the paths that our lives have taken over the many years we have known each other - separate yet connected, parallel but unique.

So, to the brother I didn’t grow up with from the sister you never knew you needed, in gratitude for that accidental meeting in the bookstore, and in memory of our days in the Heights; for the characters we knew, the band jackets worn, all those shared meals, and problems solved; for the friendships forged and songs sung; for those special wonderful golden times when one is young and life is still largely to come - this hat is for you, dear David, with love and gratitude knit into every stitch!