Whole Lotta Knittin' Goin' On...

Oh my!  I have been a busy bee since I was last here...

I am quite proud of these adult size fliptop mittens.  For some reason I struggled much more with these than I did with the ones I made for Mr. Boy.  But in the end they came out very lovely and deliciously warm. 

 Above is my very first successful adventure into the provisional cast on.  This is actually a practice/experimental hat that I wasn't really expecting to love as much as I do.  I just wanted to try out a double sided beanie with a seamless provisional cast on and I didn't want to "waste" any "nice" yarn.  Funny thing is I love this hat! I used left-over cheapy cheap baby yarn thinking that it would just be an "extra" hat to store in the car for when I forget my hat or whatever, and then I ended up truly loving the style, fit, softness, warmth, and even colors so much that it quickly became my favorite.  Perfect for those wishy-washy Spring days when the weather can't decide if it wants to be nice or blustery. Those two layers block out the wind and those bright colors remind you that yes, it really is Spring even if the wind is trying to give you frostbite. 

The pattern is actually for a men's hat, but it is so cute on my girlie head that I couldn't believe it.

Above is the exact same pattern.  This one made for my brother with only a single layer as written and requested.  This is the third one of these I have made for him since he either loses them or claims they don't fit. But I think he's just a hat hoarder. 

The poncho that I started literally years ago and finally finished this winter just as it was warming up. It is lovely and warm and soft as kittens and I plan to live in it next fall and winter.  I don't have it written up in Ravelry yet partly because ponchos are just not that cool anymore and I feel like a weirdo for still loving them as I do and partly because I forgot.  Maybe I'll get to that some day and add a link.  Maybe not.  

 

Socks! Two pair of actual, genuine, bona fide, knitted socks! I am super excited about this new skill of mine because it has been a long, slow, road, of gathering knitting skills like breadcrumbs until I felt confident enough to even try to knit these babies. I think I will just leave this picture up here and make my next blog post an entire post about socks because I have a lot to say about this development. Unfortunately I actually sort of overdid it while making that 2nd pair- too much knitting with not enough rest in between and I have a little Repetitive Stress Injury going on so I'm taking a break from knitting anything for a week or so- which is how I ended up writing up this blog post instead... 

And here are some Irises from my garden because they're pretty and because I am just so darn stoked to even have a garden.  

There's probably going to be a lot more garden talk going on around here from now on. Fair warning. 

Sometimes I knit.

Not often, but sometimes, I knit.  I really love to knit, actually, but it takes sooooo loooonng to finish anything, which means that I hardly ever do finish anything knitted these days, which is why I just crochet most of the time.  I can crochet like the wind.

However, every now and then someone asks me to make them something, and inevitably that something is usually knitted.

This hat for example was made for my dad.  I made him a hat long ago for Christmas, I think it was?  And when I asked him what he wanted for Father's Day it turned out to be another hat just like the other one.  Really, a hat?  In the summer?  You want a hat?  Are you sure?  Yes.  He's sure he wants a hat, only he wants it to be burnt orange (UT colors) so he can wear it to the UT games.  And let me tell you, that was no easy task finding the exact right shade of burnt orange.  You can't just pick any old orange.  I had to take him to the yarn store and we spent quite a bit of time going over which orange is burnt orange and which is Tennessee orange and which is almost burnt orange but not quite.  (Apparently to show up to a UT game wearing Tennessee orange or not quite UT orange is a major faux pas. Who knew?)  But alas, Dad will have his hat.  (Quite a few weeks past Father's Day, but knitting takes me soooo loooonng!)

Here's the pattern I used for the hat, though instead of a rolled brim, I used a 1X1 ribbing for the brim. And the stripe sequence I chose was based on the Fibonacci sequence because it's one of those math geeky things that men think are cool.

And then once I start knitting, well, I have to make a few of these too:

Now these are dishcloths made of cheapety cheap cheap cotton yarn, and they are magic.  Magic I tell you!  Everyone loves these things, and thankfully they are extremely quick and easy to make.  I can turn these suckers out in a day or two.  Less if I didn't have a toddler to tend to.  They may not look like much, and usually when I give them to people as gifts they look at me kind of like,  "Oh... knitted dishcloths... well... thanks... I guess..."  But then they always come back to me and say, "HEY! Those things are AWESOME! I need, like 100 more of them!"  But really you only need, like, 3 of them because they are damn near impossible to destroy.  Unless you're my mother.  She always finds a way to tear them up, so I made the above for her.  But when Dad saw them, his eyes lit up!  "OH! You made us some more dishcloths! Oh I LOVE these things!"  Really?  Well, that's what I like to hear!

Anyone want the pattern?  Here it is!

(In case anyone is interested, when I make them I change row 3 so that the first knit 2 together is an SKP, only because I think it makes a more fetching dishcloth, but it's really not necessary for functionality.)

Aaaaat Laaaast... my love has come along...

Pattern: Warm Cap with Brim/Swirls Cap
Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Fantasy Naturale Multi
Hook: Size F
Size: Custom Fit for my teensy head

This is the Magic Hat. I decided, on a whim to make myself a hat this winter. It was one of those things where you just suddenly decide that you need to drop everything and make yourself a hat. (I don't really know if this happens to anyone else, but it happens to me.)

First off, I should say now that I have bad mojo when it comes to hats. They just never work out, no matter how hard I plan, or how carefully I pick out my pattern. It always turns out wrong somehow. Either too big or too small or it fits but it looks stupid on me. And at one time I had just given up on hats entirely. Just decided that I wasn't really a "hat person." But then for some reason I decided to try again. Maybe I saw a hat on someone and liked the way it looked and got jealous. Or maybe I was just really cold. I really don't remember. Probably it had something to do with wanting to buy myself some yarn and the only way I could justify it was to tell myself that it would only be a couple of skeins... just enough for a hat.

My first candidate was Le Slouche by Wendy Bernard. Well, I made it and it turned out looking pretty good and then it just streched and stretched and stretched until it was covering my eyes. I'm thinking that had to do with the cotton yarn, but I'm not sure if I just made it too big or what. Anyway, it didn't work out and I didn't like it enough to make it all over again, plus I decided I wanted a hat with a brim anyway. (I'd been seeing these cute little slouchy brim hats everywhere and I HAD to have one.)

Well, to make a long story short, I eventually had to resort to changing from knit to crochet, then I ended up having to combine two different hat patterns to get the hat I wanted. And I had to crochet in some elastic around the base to keep it from stretching out. (A little trick that I took from inspecting a bought hat that was cute, but too small from me.) There were times during my Hat Journey where I almost gave up. I must have made this hat maybe 4 or 5 times before I finally figured it all out. So maybe I should call this the Perseverence Hat. The Holy Grail Hat. Whatever. It's Magic to me because I finally have a hat that I love. I had to modify the pattern greatly to get this particular hat, including going to a whole other pattern to get the brim. The pattern itself is easy, but it's more of a suggestion than a pattern as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, it all worked out in the end and now I have at least one hat pattern that I know fits my head. WOOHOO!



Love that I can wear it with my hair down, or all tucked up inside, too.

I liked the yarn, especially the color, but I think if I make it again, I'll choose a solid color. I always feel like variegated yarn looks kind of cheesy in crochet and had I known I would end up switching to crochet I would have chosen a solid color to begin with.
Also, you might notice that the brim doesn't really match up with the little seams very well, which makes the hat look slightly wonky.
Oh well.

(Modifications on ravelry)