I have been taking advantage of the lingering evening light and trying to get my butt out and walk in the evenings. It is still pretty cool here and a jacket is a must but it’s nice to have fresh air and beautiful sunsets.
For last night’s walk I took Dad’s Camo hat for a stroll. I’m still working on the main body of the hat. The camo colors are starting to pool and flash a little bit but I’m not going to fuss about it. It will be interesting to see what develops!
Happy Knitting
The super slouch Hat for Dad is done, washed and ready to head out the door. I made a left turn after I finished this hat. It’s not going to be for my dad. It’s going to my daycare provider as she is starting 18 weeks of chemo and going to lose all her hair. She needs this worse than my dad and I just want to wrap her in wooly hugs.
Pattern: None, just a basic 88 stitch worsted weight beanie
Yarn: Lilliput Yarn in Woof Worsted in the Man’s Best Friend Colorway
Needles: US 8s
Mods: None because I made up the hat as I went, lol.
This hat turned out to be a SUPER slouch when used with single brim. But is a nice beanie with the brim folded double. I ended with 11 gram leftover, so a nice sized ball. The hat only took 89 grams or 194 yards. So my prediction was correct…winging it made me have a decent chunk of yarn leftover, lol.
I’m still proud of this hat and I’m itching to get another one on the needles. I have a second skein of this Lilliput yarn in the Chasing Cars colorway that I think will be next up on the needles.
Happy Friday and Happy Knitting!!
Dad’s hat is swimming right along. This has been great knit night knitting and zoom meeting knitting.
I am not following any kind of pattern. I have 88 stitches and I’m just knitting what feels good. No clue how many inches of ribbing, no clue how long I’ll make the hat portion and no pre-plan for the crown decreases. I’ve been knitting long enough that I’m comfortable with just winging it.
The only thing I do want to try to do is use as much yarn as possible. But I feel like that is a chuckle waiting to happen since I’m winging it. I firmly believe I will either be wildly over or under and either run out or have a ton left. Time will tell, lol.
Happy Knitting!!
I’m inching every closer to finishing my Weekender Sweater. I had split for the armholes and knit up both sides in the plain section. I’m finding it helpful to knit the sections in one after another. Meaning I knit up the front until I got the right height and then I counted my rows and knit up the back to same measurement.
The next step in this project is to knit a series of short rows before the final ribbing that will create the boat neck collar. I think I will like ways knit those in a similar fashion. I hope these will mean I can keep them symmetrical and therefore matching.
I’m keen to get this knit up and bound off so I can try the sweater on. I am thinking its not going to have as much ease as the pattern suggests. That is what I get for not swatching but I do believe blocking will add some because the Malabrigo is superwash. And for my body shape it is not always a bad thing not to have a huge amount of ease and be a little closer fitting. I just need to knit faster so I can find out!
Happy Knitting!
My Four Seasons Hat has finished its bath and is nicely blocked and ready for a head to keep warm. This is a hat I had been keeping in my purse as a carry around project that got finished during recent air travel.
Pattern: 96 stitch slouched stockinette beanie with ribbed brim.
Yarn: KnitCircus RingMaster in a prototype skein called Four Seasons
Needles: US 6 for brim and US 8 for hat
I really just kind of knit this hat on the fly. I knit the ribbing until it was long enough and started the hat when it felt right. I knit until my ball of yarn was looking small-ish and then I worked a series of decreases similar to the sockhead hat decreases. It’s kind of a franken-pattern mash up of different ideas. I was working with a “seconds” kind of yarn that had knots. I pulled out all the knots and Russian joined the breaks. I really can’t see them in the finished fabric.
The crown decreases did come out a little nipple like at the very top. I haven’t decided if it bothers me or not. I can always throw a pom pom on it if I decide that it does. I used up about 155 yards of the 185 yard skein. So just about 85%. I’m guessing I could have eked out a few more rows before the crown decreases but I didn’t want to play yarn chicken. I tucked the leftover in my bin for a scrappy project or future hat repair.
I’m pretty happy with this finished item. I just need to decide if I’m going to keep or gift this one. Happy Knitting!!!
Jellybean needed to blow off some steam the other day so I took him for a post school trip to Skyzone. He got 60 minutes of literally bouncing off the walls and I got to sit and knit where my project matched the landscape, lol.
I had one other mom ask me what I was knitting. I gladly obliged and told her about my project. I even told her she got bonus points for knowing it was knitting! I’m still plugging away at the brim of my Four Seasons Hat. I am not aiming for any particular length or measurement. Just knitting until it looks good and then I’ll start the main body. Nothing super scientific as this is just my purse/zen project.
See you guys tomorrow with something extra cool!
By the grace of a three hour car trip with the hubby driving and a minivan with a DVD player….I have a finished hat! (It really did take me all of 2.5 hours to do crown decreases because the tiny humans kept demanding snacks, toys and other nonsense.) This is my Modified Barley I started for conference knitting last week. I took the tiny humans to see the grandparents and to attend my hometown Fall Fest. It worked out well for my knitting.
This blurry awkward car selfie is the best I have right now. I finished the decreases and it promptly got sorted to the bottom of my knitting bag. I’ll see if I can dig out some better FO photos this week.
I did snag a pretty awesome sunset knitting photo. I was working the last few decrease rounds as we rode off into the sunset. It’s fall harvest in Kansas so the air is full of dust and dirt. Makes it REAL hard on the allergies but the most gorgeous yellow and orange displays of mother nature.
Happy Knitting!!
I recently attended an annual conference for one of the professional organizations I belong to. It was two solid days hanging out in ballrooms listening to speakers. I have been knitting a lot on large sweaters lately and didn’t have a ton of “grab and go” knitting available to me. I had to do some stash diving and get something going just for “travel” knitting.
The night before the conference I hand wound a skein of worsted weight yarn and grabbed a set of interchangeable needles. This was a recent purchase of Plymouth Yarn Worsted Merino Superwash in the Lipstick colorway. I managed to establish the ribbing before walking into the first day of lectures. And then I quietly knit in my lap or under the table and this was my progress at the end of two days! I used the basic stitch count and sizing of the Barley hat from Tin Can Knits and just omitted the garter section.
It’s kind of hard to see squished up under the conference table but that is two inches of ribbing and about five inches of hat. I had a new-ish coworker with me and she was duly impressed. I think just a few more evening of knitting time and I will have a hat for my gift stash!
I also attended Schmancy cocktail event on the first night. I couldn’t help but snag a photo of the most grown up thing I have done in a dozen fortnights. I got to enjoy a good glass of red coupled with tasty hor’dourves in a proper bar. And no one wiped their cocktail sauce on me or threw asparagus chunks at me. It was non-mom heaven!!
Happy Knitting!!
I really need to unsubscribe from my newsletters or a bit after my last purchase or two. I am a SUCKER for a yarn deal. Oh well, my bills are paid and my family is fed. I’ll just die in a well insulated craft room some day!!
KnitCircus yarns was having another mystery sale. This is where you get to pick a yardage amount and number of skeins but nothing else. And you get a super good deal because they are clearing out the discontinued colors, short skeins, skeins with knots, or happy dye accidents. I picked a 150 g skein plus a second skein that would be tonal or semi-solid. I ended up with these two beauties…
The first is a 150 gram skein of Trampoline gradient yarn in the Sherwood Forest color. This is a discontinued color on their fingering to light fingering base. This should make a really lovely and large shawl some day. Off the top of my head this might be a good use for the Vamping Shawl I tried and failed earlier.
Next up is a skein of worsted weight Ringmaster in a prototype autumnal color on a skein with knots. Orange isn’t usually my color but this should make a wonderful hat. Maybe a Barley by TinCan knits or a Quick Ombre Hat by Emily Dormier. I have been meaning to dip my toe into colorwork.
Have you ever bought mystery yarn?
I decided to participate in World Wide Knit in Public day on June 8th. I passed PB and Jellybean on to my husband and was like “peace out I’m going to the yarn store!” and ran away. It was a wonderful couple of hours. I managed to sit and knit for a bit in the mall courtyard outside the shop but I neglected to take photos. But I did snag a photo of some sweet ice cream treats the yarn store owner was passing out to knitters.
Well I’m not sure if it was the chocolate high or the yarn fumes wafting out of the yarn store, but they were have a sale and I fell down in the Malabrigo section. I’ve been toying with the idea of knitting a worsted boxy to use a nicer sweatshirt in the fall and winter. Like a socially acceptable blanket I could wear and be comfortable and stylish. Jellybean always likes when I wear green so I bought six skeins of worsted to knit a boxy.
I got the Fresco y Seco color and its wonderfully tonally green and bits of yellow. Now I fully understand I’m going to have to alternate skeins to prevent pooling and lines where I would change skeins. I’m thinking about trying helical knitting that seems to everywhere on the podcast and inter webs here lately.
I have like four projects that I need to finish before I let myself cast this on. So this is almost like Wishful Knitting but here’s hoping it is at least near in the future!
Happy Knitting!!
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