Hat 13 – Putting on my Top Hat

Yes, Gentle Readers, I have knit a top hat. It is the pattern Marlene from the book Hat Couture. I love this book because the hats are so much fun, with lots of embellishments and such. I will be adding a ribbon and other items after the hat is completely dry. To get the hat to stand up, you must knit at a very tight gauge. I used a size US 10 needle on a super bulky yarn. The yarn is Ella Rae Mega. It is a single spun yarn and it was ideal for this project. I have never knit with yarn before. It is okay to knit with, but it did have some weird strands of something in the yarn, maybe guard hairs or nylon. I am not sure which.  They were easy to pull out so it wasn’t a big deal, just strange. The biggest problem with this hat is the tight gauge. My hands would ache like the dickens after about an hour of knitting. I was a little worried about how it looked before I blocked it, but I love how it turned out. I can’t wait till it is dry and adorned and I can wear it out and about.

Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Hat 11 is the Helmet hat from Vogue’s Ultimate Hat Book and knit out of Spud & Chloe’s Sweater. It took forever to knit. It was not hard, but very fiddly. There are cables and twisted stitches. It is supposed to have an extra band thingy at the bottom of the hat. The first time I did the band it was too many stitches, so I pulled it out and tried again. This time I ran out of yarn half through the bind off. I looked at what I had and I did not like it anyway so it came out again and stayed out. I also made it smaller than what the pattern called for. I made it to fit my head.

I liked knitting with the yarn; it held up well to the ripping out I did and it was very soft. It has very nice stitch definition.

Hat 12 is the Northwoods Hat I designed for the MN Shop Hop. I could not knit with the yarn we had for chosen for the hop, so I knit it out of Smart. I found the yarn sort of splity, but I still think the hat turned out. It would have been better in green so the lace would look like trees (which was the look I was going for). Overall, I think it is a great design, if I do say so myself.

Hat 11.25 – new invention. So when I was working on the design for the Northwoods Hat, I wanted to see how the lace looked in the round. I knit a little tiny hat to check it out. In order to block it, I had to find something to stretch it upon. Through much searching, I found this.

                     

After it was all blocked and dry I realized that I had invented a new thing: a clown nose cosy! 

I know, I am a genius! No doubt I will become a millionaire with this great invention.

Intermission

I have not been knitting for the past couple of weeks. I started hat 11, but I am not very far on it. This happens on occasion, I just don’t feel like knitting. So I am falling behind on my goal.

What have I been doing instead?? Why needlepoint, of course…

Here is my Spiderman topper I have been working on. It is not quite done (I have to finish the webbing on the uniform). My granddaughter saw it and she asked if it was for her. She LOVES Spiderman and Batman and well any super hero. She is awesome! It is for her of course!

I did pick up a couple of old knitting booklets this week. I bought this one solely because I loved this picture on the back cover. 

Isn’t he the coolest dude ever!? I just loved the gritty New York landscape and the bright blue cardigan.

Once I looked over the booklet, it is actually really good. It has directions for various raglan men’s sweaters. The sizes go up to 56” and include different sleeve and neck options. Well worth the $.25 I paid for it. I am very happy.

I need to start knitting hat # 12 because I need to design a hat for the upcoming Shop Hop. Keep your eyes open for that post. 

Hat Number 10

This hat is knit with a new yarn from Lorna’s Laces called Masham Worsted, 70% British Wool & 30% Masham wool. I am not sure which colorway it is, maybe Cornelia. It is a great yarn to knit with. I would love to knit something else with it. 

The pattern is the Beaufort Hat (it is a free Ravelry download). I had originally tried a different pattern and I did not like it all. I have knit this hat pattern before and I really like the pattern. It is easy to remember and it goes quickly. I do not know that this is the best colorway to use for this hat. But I like how it looks like waves. It would think it would be great in a solid or tonal yarn.

Here is a picture of a Masham sheep. Isn’t it the cutest thing??

If you scroll down on this page, you can get more info about them. I am glad that Lorna’s is using a rarer breed for this yarn. There are many breeds of sheep and some are quite rare and if no one uses the wool, they will disappear forever. 

Hat number 9 – number 9, number 9, number 9

On The Beatles self-titled album, aka The White Album, there is a song called Revolution 9. This is not the one you have heard on the radio, which is Revolution 1 (I do not know what happened to Revolutions 2-8). Revolution 9 is over 8 minutes long and consists of backwards looping, noise, various statements and John Lennon saying Number 9 over and over again. So you are probably asking what this has to do with my latest hat… well, that is how I felt knitting this hat.

Here is all the mixed up SSK & K2tog

I ripped it back so many times that I felt like it was just repeating it over and over again.  Then when I was almost done with the hat, I discovered that I had mixed up my ssk & k2tog for most of the chart.  Arrggh! I did not rip it out because I was sick to death of the damn thing. The hat is Hepatica from Lace One-Skein Projects and I knit it from Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport. The problems were all due to me, not the pattern or the yarn. I am just at not good at knitting lace. It is not intuitive to me. I am forever making errors with the symbols, as is evident in this hat.

I want to love knitting lace because I would like to knit a big old lace shawl, but I don’t love it. I don’t hate it, but that is a long way from being able to knit a huge project in it.

Anyway, I blocked it like a regular hat instead of a beret because it is too small for that and I think it looks okay for all of the mistakes. 

Hat # 8 - In Which Things Did Not Go As Planned

This hat is knit with Colinette Point 5 and it is a pattern I improvised.

I bought this yarn with the intention of knitting a certain hat, but when I started it I did not like how the thick and thin nature of the yarn looked. So I started trying different patterns (many). Eventually I decided to cast on with a provisional cast on and do the body in mistake rib. I love mistake rib because it always looks good. Once it was long enough, it took out the provisional cast on and did a 3 needle bind off. Then I picked up around the top edge and knit the crown. It ended up having a little pointy thing at the top which I do not mind as it sort of reminds me of some hats from the 1950s which I have seen (or maybe Genghis Khan). Either way, I am okay with it. I then did single crochet around the bottom edge to even it out a little.

Hat # 7 – A Hat for Janine

I told my friend Janine that I would knit her a hat if she bought the yarn. I asked if she had a pattern in mind and all she said was that she wanted cables.

I looked for a pattern and I could not find any that fit the yarn and the size of Janine’s head, so I designed my own. I found a cable in Barbara Walker’s 2^nd Treasury and figured it out to be done in the round.

The yarn is Rowan Renew (which is sadly discontinued) and it was very nice to knit with and I would gladly knit with it again.

I think it is pretty good and Janine liked it. So life is good. 

Double the Hats, Double the Fun

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am going to write about 2 hats in this post.

Hat # 5 – Going for the Gold

On Ravelry, we like to celebrate the Olympic games with a little contest we call the Ravellenic games. Basically, you pick a category and cast on during the opening ceremonies and have to be finished by the closing ceremonies and you knit while watching all the different sports. The object is to choose a project which will challenge you.  I have had this Knit Picks kit for a Andean Chullo for several years. The reason I have never knit it is because I HATE purling in two colors. I cannot purl with my left hand (I have no problem knitting with it). I have to just pick it up with my left hand and wrap the purl around the needle. It takes me forever. So this was a good project for me to challenge myself.

There is a ton of yarn in this kit. I am pretty sure I could make 4 hats just like this with the kit and still have yarn left over.  I am really happy with the way it turned out and I have been wearing it. It is warm and cozy and cute as a button (if I do say so myself).

I would like to talk a little bit about Andean hats… The Andes are in Peru and Bolivia. There men and women (depending on the village) knit brightly colored men’s hats called Chullos. They have detailed patterns, some are geometric and some have animals, but they are all very lovely. The hats are not stranded knitting (which this kit is), but rather they are knit in a type of intarsia in the round. The knitters will also add embellishments like buttons and tassels. I have not added any of those things to my hat, but I think if I do another one, I will make the earflaps in stripes and then add buttons because, well I like buttons!

If you would like to learn more about Andean Knitting, here is a website. http://btsadventures.com/for-knitters/

They also have trips for those who are interested. I would very much like to go and see how they do the intarsia in the round. When I have tried to do it, I have not been successful.

Hat # 6 – So cute

This hat is a child size hat made for the shop. We were having a Yarn Tasting and needed a sample knit up in one of the yarns. The pattern is called Lineside Beanie. It is a well written pattern and can be made for newborns to adults. I actually think it is a great pattern for the whole family and think that is a great deal as you can knit it in dk or worsted weight and it would look good on almost everyone. It is a little fiddly at first, but once you get to the body of the hat, it goes really fast.

I think I might be slightly behind in my hat making so I am going to have to make some hats with a little bigger yarn to catch up. 

Hat # 3 – Oh Voyageur!

This hat is a kit from Imperial Stock Ranch it is the Corps of Discovery. The reason this post is after hat 4 is because I ran out of yarn. This was probably my fault because I always have a problem with row gauge; my rows are always smaller than they should be. I ran out when I had only about 20 rows left. I asked if I could get like 10 – 15 more yards because I figured that would finish it up. The lovely people at Imperial Stock Ranch sent a whole skein. They are awesome.

This pattern (which is available to purchase separately) is really well written. It has great short row directions. But I would advise getting the kit because it comes with the Imperial Stock Ranch’s Columbia yarn (which is fantastic) and is great to knit with.

Columbia yarn is made from Columbia sheep. These sheep are a truly American sheep. They were developed in 1912 by the USDA who wanted a hearty sheep which would thrive in the western United States and provide more wool. I would highly recommend it.  

So, why knit a Voyageur hat? One Christmas (many, many years ago) The Hub & I gave my father-in-law a book about Voyageurs in Minnesota. He was really pleased with it (more than I could have imagined) and he sang a song about Voyageurs. Flash forward to last year when I saw this hat pattern and I thought why not knit that in honor of my father-in-law. If I thought he would wear it, I would give it to him, but I knit him a hat per his request a couple of years ago. 

Hat # 4 - Look Puppies!

What??? Hat # 4, where is hat number 3? There was a slight problem with it and I had to move on to this one. As you know, time and tide waits for no man and I am no exception… So I am proud to present to you hat #4. 

This hat is the February perk at the shop and it is my own design. I am calling it Pups on Parade.

I used Elemental Affects Fingering for the yellow, red and blue and the black is Rowan Angora Haze. I loved working with the Elemental Affects, it is nice and toothy and it works so well for the colorwork. I found the Angora haze easy to knit with, but it is very soft and when I pulled the yarn through the remaining stitches, it broke and I had to patch it together to weave in the ends. But the pups look so nice and fuzzy and I am happy with them.

I think I should have added more rows in the crown so it was longer and less bunchy, but I still like the hat and I would gladly wear it. 

If you like it too, stop into 3 Kittens and pick up a pattern. 

Hat #2: 3rd Time is the charm

This hat is called Once Upon a Tam it is a free Ravelry download. It is based on a hat seen on Once Upon a Time (the TV show on ABC) which I like for the lovely hand knits.  This photo is not the best and the color is really darker and prettier. Plus I have not yet blocked the hat. The pattern is really well written. Of course, my row gauge is off as usual so I added some plain knitting rows between the charts. 

Issues: The 1^st time I cast on the needle was too large and I did not like how it looked, so I ripped it out. 2^nd cast on, I got through row 2 when I realized that I had twisted the stitches and I had to rip it out again. The cast on is 168 stitches, this I a lot of ripping out, just saying.  The 3^rd time worked just fine.

I thought about using a larger needle for the body of the hat, but I really like the fabric I got with the 3.

The yarn is Lotus Mimi, it is 100% Mink. It was very nice to knit with (although it was a little slippery) and the end product is soft and light as air. It is fantastic. 

Hat Number ONE

I cast on my first hat of the year on January 1^st and I finished it on January 5^th. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.  The pattern, Twig Lace Cap, is from Lace One Skein Wonders and I made it out of Rowan Pure Wool Worsted. This is a brand new yarn from Rowan and it will be showing up in the shop mid-January. It is a nice yarn, it is machine washable and I enjoyed knitting with it. The pattern was well written and the repeat was easy to memorize once you got going. I did make a mistake, but I do not think it makes a big difference. 

I like this hat. I think it is really pretty.

Hat number two here I come!!

Here is the Plan

As the people who have read my blog know, I try to challenge myself in the New Year to learn something new related to knitting. I have decided to do something a little different next year; I am going to knit 52 hats. I intend to blog about each one. So we will see how this goes…

Here are the rules I have set for myself…

Even though there are 52 weeks in the year I am not going force myself to knit one a week. I figure there will be hats I do in less than a week and some I do in more than a week. So long as I get to 52 in the end, I am golden.

Baby (preemie) hats count as ½ a hat. They are so small…

There will be hats for charity. I encourage everyone else to make a hat for charity, too. It feels good and it is easy to do.

I have also signed up for the Master’s program through TKGA. Basically, I am going to knit nothing by hats and swatches next year! If someone wants something else, they will have to make it themselves.

All the Pretty Horses

I finished this book in little over a week, which I think is pretty good considering it was a hard book to get into. Overall, I liked it, but the writing is very sparse. No exposition, no quotation marks, which makes it a difficult book to follow. I understand why he writes the story this way; in order to show these are a certain type of man living in a hard land. I must say for a book banned for vulgarity and sex, this was one of the least gratuitous books I have ever read. The worst swear word in the book is damn. It was violent, but not overly so, although I am not the best judge of what is too violent…

Banned Book Week 2013

I have decided to read Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses” for my banned book. It has been removed from a school district in KS for "vulgar language, sexual explicitness, or violent imagery that is gratuitously employed."   I will let you know how it goes.

I also just re-read Stephen King’s “Carrie”. It is on the list of most challenged books, presumable because there is sex and menstruation and violence. I read it in two days. It is a quick read because I have read it before and it is only 245 pages. I have not read it in a long time, maybe 15 – 20 years and it struck me how young Mr. King was when he wrote this book. It is well written, so I am not being disparaging, but it is obvious that he was not far from the high school kids he was writing about. It is probably why it is so good; you can feel that these are real kids, doing what kids do. Of course, Carrie is also every kid who was bullied and beaten ultimate fantasy, that you could stop the people hurting you and hurt them back. It is not healthy, but it is understandable. How much can a person take after all?

I encourage everyone to find a banned book to read and then talk about it with someone: blog, tweet, facebook, or even speak to someone in person, do whatever you use to spread your thoughts around.

Books, Books, Books

I have a great love of books (I may have mentioned this) and we (The Hub & I) have tons of books. Currently I am reading Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy. We own them all and The Hub has read them. However, I finished book 2 and I could not find book 3. It was not with the others. So I figured I would check it out of the library. However, we went to the thrift store on Monday and thought “let’s see if they have a copy”. I found 3 copies of The Golden Compass (book 1) and 2 copies of The Subtle Knife (book 2), but no Amber Spyglass. I find this interesting. Is it because people finished the 2nd book and could not go on with the series? Which I think is weird because after you have gone thorough 2 why would you stop? I mean these are not tomes which are thousands of pages long, they are young adult novels.        I can see stopping after the 1st one or starting the 1st one and not liking it, but really you get through 2… Anyway, I got it from the library.

Banned Book week is coming up, it is September 22-28th. Here is a website with more details. Everyone should have the freedom to read. We should not live in a society which is afraid of ideas. If your beliefs are so weak that you can’t defend them against the written word, maybe you need to re-evaluate them.

 

So I have to find some banned books to read.  I have been trying to decide what to read. There are some classics like “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing”, “A Farewell to Arms” and Huck Finn that I have never read, but then there are some modern ones like “Persepolis” which look good. Of course, I actually have some books lying around which I could read that I already own and have not read. I think I have “All the Pretty Horses” in the house. Or I could re-read “Slaughterhouse-Five” because it is the 50^th anniversary of its publication.

I will let you know what I decide to do.

Cicadas and Such

Cicadas mate every 17 years and this is the year. They are very noisy right now and they bother me when I am trying to sleep. Last night I was thinking about what I was doing 17 years ago.

It would have been 1996.

I had been married for 6 years. I believe my sister & her now husband were dating because I remember going out on a double date w/ them and my future BIL talking about the cicadas.  Of course, it could have been the year they got married…

My little sister was still alive. By this time of the year, I think she was in the process of moving to AZ to be near mom. Or she might have already moved there. I have to say, that I am not always good at remembering when stuff happened. I go off of how old people were when an event happened. The Girl would have been 4 and her brother 1 and that was when my sister took them to AZ. Of course, it could have been later in the year… I just don’t know. If I kept a proper journal, I would know these things.

On the Price is Right, they have a game called Then & Now where you have to choose products and decide if the price is from now or some date in the past (like 1986). Sometimes I watch it and think did they have that back in 1986? My life is just like that, I just ask myself “did that exist in 1996?”

I realize I have not blogged in over 2 years. I have no good reason for it, just less time to write them during work. The Girl has moved out… it was not easy at the time, but it is done. And I have a room of my own. I am going to turn it into a craft room. I have learned how to sew. I have made 2 things and they are not too bad. This jumper is one of them. It contains actual straight seams!

 

Next year I am going to challenge myself with knitting 52 hats, one a week. I will blog about it. I promise!  

I'm Not Dead Yet

Yes it is true. I am still alive! Shocking but true.
The Girl had meningitis last weekend and had to be hospitalized. She had the viral kind NOT the bacterial kind so she will be okay. But they had to treat it like the bacterial kind until some cultures came back. On the plus side, they dosed her up with some powerful antibiotics and she is able to eat again. She has not been able to eat since her stomach issues months ago and she has lost way too much weight.
The Baby is doing well. She is talking up a storm and can do a maniacal laugh. It is really cute!
Here is a hat I finished for the shop.

I think it is pretty good. However, I think the yellow/brown color in the brim area should be a little lighter.
I am planning on knitting some stuff for The Baby and generally for my own personal pleasure. I have been knitting tons of stuff for the shop and I am sick of it. I only have one more project that is due for someone else and then I am done knitting for others.

I am going to try to blog more, but I can not make any promises since I have to create a website for the shop and other misc crap I need to get done.

Yet another month

Time has flown by since I last blogged. Not a whole lot has happened per se. There have been some changes at the shop where I work, which of course will affect me. It may be time to bite the bullet and realize that I probably have to go back to the mind-numbing world of corporate America. The idea revolts me, but I see little choice in the matter. I have not made any decisions yet, so we will see.

The Girl has been sick, again, this time with severe stomach pains. Today she went in for an ultrasound on her stomach and the doctor prescribed her ulcer medicine. And her car has broken down, Again. I hate cars and house and money and everything connected to them.

In knitting news: I am working on a scarf for The Hub. The one he has is an embarrassment to me as a knitter. This one I am working on is just a 2x2 rib, but it is nice yarn and looks nicer than the monstrosity he has been wearing.

I finished a pair of socks I started in 2007. However, the cast off on both of them is too tight and I cannot get them over my heels. So I have do decided if I want to rip them back and fix them or just say screw it and count it as done. I am sort of leaning towards calling them done.

Well, that is all I have… sorry for the depressing post, just not up to being light and perky today. 

Happy New Year

Hello, I hope you all had a good holiday season. Ours was pretty good. I know I should have written sooner, but I have just been too lazy to do it. Here is a picture of this year’s Christmas tree. It is lovely. The Girl decorated it. I think she did a really nice job. 

Look what we found when we were deconstructing the tree!

The cats find the tree fascinating. I do not know why. 

Here is the hat I knit for The Girl for her present. She likes it, so that is always a plus.

Here is The Baby with Iris the monster, which I made her for Christmas. She loves Iris and sleeps AND eats breakfast with her. It is very cute.

  

Resolutions:

1^st a review of last year’s resolutions:

1. I want to knit a 10K this year. I am not going to have the same restriction of not buying more yarn, but since I am not really working, I do not have much money for it anyway. – I did not accomplish this. I knit about 5K, just like last year. I think that might be my limit.

2. I want to learn how to do double knitting. This is 2-sided knitting, it is double thickness and both sides are right sides. It can be reversible. – I did learn to do double knitting, but did not do any projects with it. Still, I now know how to do it.

3. I want to knit 2 adult sweaters and probably a couple of kid sweaters too. – This was a complete fail. I did I knit two kid’s sweaters, one of which won 2^nd place at the State Fair. Did I mention that???

4. I am going to work on Christmas presents early!! I plan on knitting advent & Christmas ornaments. – HA HA HA. I started Christmas presents later than ever, not until November!

Ah Well. It’s a new year, so lets start over. Resolutions for 2011

1)    I am going to finish some of my old projects or rip them out and use the yarn for something else.

2)    I want to learn how to do entrelac. Mainly because I want to make the sheep in Norwegian Handknits.

3)    I am going to make a sweater for my mom. I also want to make several garments for The Baby.

4)    I am going to make Christmas ornaments. Really this year I am going to do it. Really!

I think that is enough for one year. I also am going to finish some of the needlepoint canvases I have since they are starting to pile up. I want to make a pillow for the in-laws for Christmas next year, but we will see…