A Hat for Alex

The yarn is leftover from a sweater I made for my niece 13 years ago.
Finished this hat on the Thanksgiving weekend road trip.
Trillian42 on Knittyboard has posted about her hat project here. I used the pattern she had linked to her blog post.

Also finished a hat for the same niece for her 13th birthday. No picture. I left the hat wrapped up for her birthday. All I have left are yarn crumbs.

Boucle that's bugging me

While I should be working on other things, some boucle keeps nudging at me for some reason. There are four bits.

One's a 200 yd hank of Wool in the Woods that I bought last year-plus as a congratulations to me for surviving something workish. It's very soft. Will look good with winter coats.

Two are two different hanks, each 330ish yards of a CTH end of a year closeout sale that I won't do again, as I have indulged enough.

Interestingly enough all three hanks, above, have an interesting color conversation together. Reds / purples figure into each of them, though each is clearly different (dark purple in one, some green and maroon in another, etc.)

I've been swatching a little bit with the W-i-t-Woods, so today I rolled up one of the other hanks so I could see what would happen if I alternated all three. They're all surprisingly comfortable and not scratchy, so it's rather too bad they couldn't have made an eye-poppingly bold big old sweater. (Never mind the math that I'd need to get less than 900 yards to BECOME a sweater.) The actual yarn weight is subtly different side by side. And there's a clearly visible difference in how they're spun.

Had shifted to using large needles, and suddenly the difference in the actual yarn weight seemed major. Next experiment? I'm back to thinking about what to do with them. Any recent personal bests out there with soft, bumpy boucles?

Oh, there's a bunch of Debbie Bliss Astrakhan that I bought some time ago at a store that was closing. Looking for a sweater, but that's really hanging to the back of the queue. Really, I shouldn't speak of it.

PS. This sounds all name-droppy. Sorry about that. I'm just trying to be specific, since I have no pictures of my puzzlings. If I can get pictures up next week, I will.

Finish one thing, and move on to the next.

Truly that's the way this fall has gone. I finished one project, and bang we're onto another. That's just work. Knitting has been littler, but there have been plenty of little projects.

This hat is actually one of the later knitting bits - part of the next big project, actually. A student shaved her head for a role - quite a bold thing for her to do - and so I decided I needed to make her a hat. She needed a little extra TLC, I thought, for taking on such a major endeavor and making such a personal commitment.




The hat was done pattern free. The yarn is Misti Alpaca's but it's not alpaca. This is the pima cotton and silk blend. Boring color, but it was what was on hand when I went shopping. Soft, soft, soft. The recipient is allergic to wool, but I just wasn't excited about making an acrylic hat in this particular case. It needed to feel like a treat.

Fetching Tapestry

While away from blogging, I knit a pair of mitts. Fetching, from Knitty. The yarn is Rowan's Tapestry, a soy/wool blend. Must admit that this was late summer already. Was thinking about making them for ssarahevt, my knittyboard secret pal, but I decided I wasn't content with them. I sent her a ball of the same yarn, in her preferred colorway, actually, so she might enjoy the knitting process. These are from the same ball. Isn't it interesting how the color changes have worked up? The yarn is rather like Noro - the color changes are spun in.

Started another sock

I was working on two sets of socks. Naturally as soon as I finished one, I started another sock. I had some early fall commuting time to kill and walked to Loopy yarns. This is Ravenswood, aptly named for a neighborhood through which the Brown line runs. Didn't they call the Brown line the Ravenswood line? Why of COURSE they did.

Some socks finished

Trekking Aunt Socks. Went for pebble rib on the Anne Norling pattern I go to when I don't want to think about fancy socks. I used the pebble rib once before on a sproingier worsted. I think the Trekking isn't as suited. Must send these off to my aunt.

Oh, and I officially have enough for another pair if not more. Did I mention before that I somehow thought I HAD to start from the same spot on matching balls of yarn. I will die of boredom knitting another set of socks from this yarn if I do it too soon.

A hat

I knit a hat as a thank you.
The pattern is Marnie Maclean's Nautilus hat, the second on her page. (I'd link if I were in the mood. I'm not in the mood.) The lovely Lorna's Lace worsted is Black Purl.
The wool came from a lovely little swap on the knittyboard. I think I fancied that I'd make myself a hat. There's some leftover. It may be part of something for me. In the meanwhile, it made a deserving student designer very happy. Purple is one of her colors.

Is this thing on?

I do, at long last, have some postable knitting pictures. I've been knitting, after all, even little bits. Finished socks, zipped out some mitts and a few other things. Have to go home now, though, so I can do a rare thing and eat a meal AT home. I'm going home - or maybe to the coffeeshop where the knitters are tonight. Either way it's a night OFF. Tomorrow, maybe some blog ON.