Hats, Kerchiefs, and Vests, oh my!

Hats.
Ahahah!  I finished a hat.  I would celebrate, but by now the hats are threatening to take over my apartment and eat me.

That's ok.  I get to send this hat off to a dear friend in Vegas who had a nasty infection, which would have been fine but her healthcare provider knackered something up, and it got worse.  I think a nice warm fuzzy hat would be fitting at a time like this.



And hoo, boy is this hat fuzzy.  It's a destash hat, made with something I got from Jo Ann Fabrics (Dolcetto I think it's called...) and SmarieK Knit's "Swirl Hat" pattern.  It's a really neat little pattern, and I added the extra 16 stitches to make it large.  I am happy to say that it didn't turn out too large and it should fit her nicely.  

The kerchief.

See.  Obnoxiously Purple.  Obnoxiously Bright.  


I like it.



(and yeah, I have this 'I look like I just work up' look on my face, here.  It's because I *did* just wake up in that photo.  It was over the weekend, after the revelry.  because the after the revelry photos looked; well, even dumber.  >.<  What can I say?  I look kinda dumb at time :D ) Vests.

So, having finished my queue of projects (wow, I feel so... British... when I use that word.) I found myself in a quandry of what to knit next.  I try to limit myself to one project on the needles at a time.  I still have the Baby Sweater on my roster, but it's no longer on the needles.  It is patiently waiting for me to find the right notions so it can snap closed and not be snaps that Baby might eat off of the fabric, so it's pretty much done, and just waiting for me to get off my lazy butt and *fix* it.  So I got to cast on a new project (yayy!)

I decided to go for the Stonewalls vest from Cheryle Oberle's "Folk Vests" book.  And the yarn I had in mind was the mystery green wool from the ginormous cone.  Knitting this vest I am starting to wonder how much wool was on that cone.  Now it came in 2 ply, fingeringweight strands, and I had it wound up into center pull balls so I could hold two strands together to approximate the yarn needed for the vest.  I thought the yarn needed was DK weight, but when I swatched I found it was more like worsted or aran.. so three plys it is!

At first I was horrified, terrified of running out of yarn.  

I am now halfway done, and I have used only three balls... I have this many left.

Which now leaves me with the question: what else will I knit with this stuff?

Anyways, here was the vest Sunday evening:



And here was the vest Tuesday morning after I found out I had a snow day on Monday and spent the vast majority of my snowed in day knitting and watching Doctor Who:



Man, I *love* days off of work!!

More hats.

There comes a time in every knitters life when she has to seriously sit down and think about her choices.  To evaluate the yarn which she has spun and worked into beautiful things and ask herself why?

Why the hell am I surrounded with more hats than I can ever wear?

I mean I *do* look good in them, and I *do* try to give them away, but cleaning my piles of clothes this evening has uncovered 18 knit hats in one small vicinity, with two more fresh off the needles.

Maybe I should sell hats?

Anyways, here is my go at the death hat, mark 2.  I love me some Fair Isle and I like the Binary Cable Pattern, so here is Death: Sweet Black Cherry Flavor using Black encore and the Cascade 220 from the death hat.

This is me, looking diabolical and plotting death:


I adore the way this turned out.  I am now in a mission to make one (probably slightly bigger) for Ruben in green and black; just like an old fashioned computer screen - then we'll see if he can read the binary.

Experimental Clara.



This pattern was given to me by Judith, a lovely knitter who makes the most wonderful things - none of them from a pattern. Yet every once in awhile a pattern piques her curiosity and she tries to make it.  When she gets frustrated with pattern reading she gives the pattern to someone else who will make it and then tell her how it works.

Somehow she was coming up with the wrong number of stitches per round, which I can't quite figure out why because my stitches per round were perfectly fine.  Maybe because some people read patterns differently?  The directions aren't wrong, per say, but they aren't the clearest directions out there.

Anyways it turned out pretty nicely - nicer than I thought it would when I started it.  But it's Lopi and it's slightly rough and slightly small.  It fits my head - but how many hats do I really need?

Wait a second...

Judith has a small head.  She doesn't mind rough wools.  This whole thing was her idea in the first place...

Experimental Clara is now her hat.



As a sidenote; I know alot of people don't like Lopi because it's scratchy, but it is warm.  disturbingly so!  I was knitting it and I wanted to see how the stitch pattern swirled so I put my left hand in the hat to hold it up and held it in front of my face.  After about ten seconds I realized my left hand was getting noticably warmer while my right hand was cold.

Remind me to make mittens out of Lite Lopi and knit a nice soft lining for them out of something yummy... because shit is this stuff warm!