First off, we’d like to thank ALL our readers for indulging our silliness, but sometimes silliness over rides sensibilities!

Then, let me say, Tim, Michelle and I were floored by how many people entered this giveaway, and how humorous many of the answers were! We had a blast reading each and every entry, and realized, we are amongst good company 🙂 BTW… we had several incorrect answers, too, and we enjoyed them every bit as much. For that reason, we decided to leave all answers in the random pull.

For those of you that didn’t get the reference, here’s the explanation… no matter how lame it may sound 🙂

There was an awesome sci-fi series, Firefly, that was on television for only 1 season during 2002/2003. IMDB gives this description of the series:

“Five hundred years in the future, a renegade crew aboard a small, spacecraft tries to survive as they travel the unknown parts of the galaxy and evade warring factions as well as authority agents out to get them.”

Basically, Firefly was about space cowboys. It was a Joss Whedon creation, and starred Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds. In my opinion, and many others, it was a travesty when it was canceled after just 1 season. Because of the quality of the show and incredible dialog, often humorous, it has become a cult classic.

Anyway… there was a rather unscrupulous crew member named Jayne Cobb, played by Adam Baldwin. He often wore a hat with ear flaps, but in the final episode, he receives a gift of a hand knit hat from his mother.

This hat has become iconic in the sci-fi world, especially with the “browncoats” (fans of Firefly.) When Tim saw the ear flap hat on the bird, he made the connection to Jayne’s “cunning hat”. A bit of a stretch I grant you, but hey, I got it right away. Tell you something about me? And, as far as The Bird They Call Jayne, there was an episode, my favorite, btw, where Jayne is given heroic traits which he doesn’t deserve, and the townsfolk even wrote a song about him, The Hero of Canton… The Man They Call Jayne.

So, there you have it. Now, I am going to try to redeem myself for using these two posts for utter nonsense, by tying this all into a crafting project! After the episode with the “cunning hat” aired, it went viral. There are lots of patterns on Ravelry that readers created to look like Jayne’s hat. If you have a Ravelry account, just look up Jayne’s hat to find many entries. If you don’t have a Ravelry account, I am also linking to a blog that has a pattern for the hat. She did a great job, and even boxed the hat like Jayne’s. You can find the pattern HERE:

“A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he’s not afraid of anything.”

Finally… it is time to announce the winner of The Bird They Call Jayne.

The winner is:

Kristin Bray

I don’t know if I’m a geek by trade, but I am a huge Firefly fan. Who
doesn’t love the awful, lovingly handknit hat that tough guy Jayne
receives in the mail from his mom. You gotta be a folk
hero/thief/generally murdering badass (or a cute felt birdie) to carry
off this hat.

Thanks for the chuckle,

Kristin

Congratulations, Kristin. Just email us your snail mail address and our tough little Bird They Call Jane will be on his way to your house.

Thanks to everyone that entered… especially to my fellow browncoats. And, I’d like to give a special “nudge nudge wink wink” to all of you that made the Bad Horse connection to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.

BTW… If you’ve never seen the movie Firefly and the movie that came after the series, Serenity, or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog, both created by Joss Whedon, they are available for streaming on NetFlicks. Okay… now that I got THAT out of my system… back to business as usual 🙂