mama-of-purl

Woollywormhead's incredible hand-dyed hand-spun Wensleydale got here yesterday- it's so gorgeous! The softest shiniest fuzzy Wensleydale wool in yummy colors...

before I even got a chance to take a picture of the pretty hank, I'd already wound it into a ball and started knitting a swatch.

Cast on for the hat last night and finished it tonight, hooray! So there you go, the finished 'Runnin' Beanie', one of Woollywormhead's FREE patterns!

Talk about instant gratification:-) 

At the breakfast table this morning, I thought- mmh, that sucks, I didn't get any knitting done last night... Uh, HELLO? I did in fact work on something AND finished it. Bizarre how memory works sometimes...

here's the major source of frustration that got finished- the modified Ganomy Hat version 3.3. I claimed to have finished back in December but had to rip it again because it was simply too tight and small and smurfy. I screwed up version 3.0 as well, when I made some mistake in the pattern and had to frog a few inches. After that it hibernated at the bottom of my basket. Two nights ago I picked it up again and in the course of the last two days, I had to re-do the crown twice. VERY hard to get rid of that smurf bobble up there... Now the earflaps are a tad long, but I kind of like the way it looks when they're up. Certainly looks different than the hats you can buy at the store. But flaps down? Maybe when we have a snowstorm...;-)

The hat is still quite tight and is very likely to give me incredible 'hat hair', but I don't care.

In my recent attempt to fight my cast-on addiction and actually finishing projects, I also got a whole lot of the Rogue's body done and finished the Regia Nation Color 'FUN' socks.

Stats:

yarn: Regia Nation Color 'Fun' (color 5399)

needles: 2.5 mm addi circs, first using the 2 socks on 2 circs method, then seperately again using Magic Loop method

pattern: Toe-up sock pattern by Wendy- very well-written instructions but I could definitely use more tips on how to cast off loose enough. I used 3.5mm needles for the final 2 rows and the bind-off, but it is still nowhere near as stretchy and comfortable as a regular cast-on edge using 2 needles for elasticity.

Additional thoughts: Those really shouldn't have been any longer than they are or I would've needed to increase a bunch of stitches for my oh-so-well-defined calves:-) The ribbing could've been longer and the bind-off stretchier. But hey, I'm so done with these. No more.

Have you noticed there's suddenly a lot of space in my 'on the needles' column? Well I have finished some items and decided to erase the fleamarket yarn vest which is now waiting to be frogged. I still love the yarn, but somehow this is not the right project for it.

A while back I also frogged the Noro ganomy hat that was way too tight and I've started to knit that one again after having acidentally on purpose lost the ugly hat I've been wearing in shame. This is actually the 3rd try I'm having at this hat, the first time I cast on for it again it turned out to be too tight again. I don't know what went wrong when I calculated the gauge...

Another exciting new project are the River Rapids Socks by sockbug in Lana Grossa Meilenweit colortweed color 1004. I'm a little skeptical if the river pattern will turn out as well in this self-striping yarn, but I thought the colours were perfect for it. We'll see.

Hello my darling fellow knitter- you're probably all excited about tonight (Europe)/this afternoon (US) already;-) Geez, it's the first time I've ever known exactly when the Olympics started! I used to figure out that they're on just when I turned on the TV to watch some show I watched regularly that's been 'eaten up' by the games.

I've started my sockapalooza socks! After much debate and a first try with a folded picot edge (I now knit it with 2.0mm needles and the rest with 2.5mms) that had to be frogged, I cast on again on Tuesday and man, do those socks knit up fast! At the end of the night (and a 6CD audiobook:-o), I was ready to turn the heel.
It's so hard to pick a pattern for someone you hardly know anything about! I'm pretty sure she'll like the colors, but I tried to be somewhat on the safe side with the pattern -it's really got a certain kick (or twist;-)) to it, but it's still classic and sophisticated...

When I recently did some online research on how to knit socks on two circulars, I watched a video at knitting help.com which included such a neat tip - knitting in the yarn end in the first few stitches of the first row of a sock. Of course! Such an easy solution, one less end to weave in:-) In the case of the picot edge,  I didn't even have to cut the remaining end of the cast-on tail, because it elegantly hid in the folded up seam. Aaaah, the pristine beauty of knitting...

Then I did some more jaywalking last night, I really want to finish this pair until the end of the KAL next Tuesday.

The little raglan sweater I'm making for Johanna is also growing, although I've mis-designed the neck/button line. I meant to make a diagonal opening which would've had to be in between the raglan increases, but I was unsure about how to get it right, so I thought I'd place it left of the increases- umm, of course it's a vertical line now. Duh. Oh well, it'll just be 'different'. An off-center button line...

Oh, and my friend Jytte came over yesterday to pick up her hat- it fit! The merino and the cable made it quite stretchy. She really liked the colors& the pattern and spent the rest of the afternoon sneaking off every now and then to admire her new hat in the mirror:-)

So I promised my old friend Jytte a perfectly fitting hat for her birthday. She gave me some vague color and pattern preferences (it's supposed to match a red coat she's wearing) and we measured her head at her party 2 weeks ago.

Now I finished the hat last night, I thinks the yarn, color and pattern are cool- Wolle Halle 100% Merino, pattern vaguely based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's ganomy hat, sporting an extra cable running up the front. I've knit 2 hats somewhat according to the ganomy hat already, but I was never entirely happy with the crown. The original pattern creates a kind of pointy crown, which I dislike, and I wanted to change it so it'd fit snugly at the top. Well, that didn't work out. While the sides and front fit nicely, there is the weirdest freakin' bobbly thing in the back which looks like the peaks of British Columbia. I stayed up extra late last night, eager to finish the hat, but now I hate to admit it- there is some froggin' action required. I think I know how to fix it- after the increases in the back, I shouldn't have knit a few even rows over it but started with the decreases right away.

I really want the hat to fit VERY WELL for Jytte, as I've made her hats in the past she doesn't wear because they're too tight or too short. Her head's circumference is an entire 4 cm larger than mine, so I hope at least the with is okay. Sigh. Unfortunately I don't get so see her very often, or I'd make her try it on...