A Hat For a Neighbor

Project Name: Hat for Bruce
Pattern Name: Ed's Hat by Michelle Edwards (Free Pattern on Ravelry)
Yarn: 75 yards of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in color 110 Navy
Needle: Size 13, 36" circular needle
Size: Adult
Love: ♥♥♥♥♥ - Love it!

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE

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This is a hat for my neighbor Bruce. He brought us over nice neighbor Christmas gifts BEFORE Christmas. (Begin guilt meter here....) And here I am mid February finally finished with his hat. I actually had a box of locally made fancy chocolate to give him - and managed to deliver my "Christmas Neighbor Gift" to all my neighbors except him. I think he ran away for the holidays, and then we had the flu over in our house. It seemed wrong to deliver a belated gift of food from the house of flu, so I decided to knit him a hat instead. 

Well I had to find a pattern and buy the yarn. And then I messed up the pattern, so I had to frog it out and start over. This actually got me to knit this hat on a long circular instead of double point needles. I have never knit a hat on one long circular - so it was fun to figure that out while working on the inches of ribbing.

The pattern itself was really simple and well written. It makes a nice "Manly" hat and I think I will keep this one around to give as gifts to my brother and male relatives. 

A hat for my brother

 I haven't had much time to knit lately, but when my mom got this yarn for me I knew I had to make something for my Brother toot sweet. My brother is a HUGE Green Bay Packer Fan and this yarn is perfect for making a Packer hat. The yarn is Red Heart Team Spirit and it's pretty rough acrylic. I have read it softens a bit when washed - so we will hope that is true.

I cast on after class this week and have been working on it in bed at night after I have studied to the point my brain is mush. Simple ribbing is really soothing to me right now. It feels like working worry beads. It's rhythmic and it's not real easy to screw up - A big bonus!

I like that the color changes every few rows. It keeps the boredom at bay a bit. I love a solid colored item - but I do get bored with the monotonous visual factor. So exciting when the yarn is about to change and you knit knit knit to get that color change onto your needle. I think I knit faster when there are color changes just because I need to see what is "next".

I don't think I will get it done for Christmas, but his B-day is in February and that is very do-able. The hat looks really small to me - but it IS ribbed so I guess it will really stretch. We will see.

Can you handle the lockdown? HAT

 

Project Name: Can you handle the lockdown?

Pattern Name: Erich's A&F Knockoff Hat

Yarn: Lion Brand Hometown USA in Dallas Gray 50.2 yards (45.9m)
Needle: 15 & 13
Size: Fit's me head
Love: ♥♥♥♥♥ 5 Hearts! Simple pattern and it looks good!

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.
 

A simple hat pattern out of some stash I had laying around. I saw Sassypants Knitter was collecting hats in honor of her Grandma who wants to collect 100 hats it give to the Homeless this winter. Wendy (Sassypants herself) is so awesome, and it seemed like the perfect thing that I knit this thinking I wanted it to be a charity hat, and then I saw on Ravelry that she is taking hats for donation.

This pattern is a breeze to work up and looks pretty fab if I do say so myself. I went through my leftovers last night and pulled out a bunch of left overs of this weight of yarn and think I will work up a bunch more charity hats. It's good to do a little charity knitting!

Oh - And the name comes from me knitting this up while watching Ghost Adventures on The Travel Channel.

Ladybug Picnic

My first finished object of 2012! WOOT! I started working on this WAY back in July of last summer, a simple project I started for a family picnic. The pattern is a free one on Ravely called Scrunchable Scarf and it's a pretty popular pattern. Wonderful use of a single skein and an easy pattern to memorize.

All that being said it was boring boring boring and I had to force myself to work on it. Which is why it took me about 6 months to finish a simple scarf.

The yarn is by Pagewood Farms and is called Kissi. 210 yards of 100% merino wool - it reminds me a lot of Malabrigo but more expensive. The colors in this and the squish of the yarn were so amazing that I had to have it.

The length after I soaked it in Eucalin (See bottom picture for a look at the dye that came out of this puppy!) was just over Six feet! I was surprised by how long it got. This made blocking a bit interesting. I was worried about laying my blocking blocks on the floor with oodles of pins sticking out. Our cat has never pulled out my pins - but I don't want to tempt her. So I folded the scarf in half and used a rolled towel to pull the scarf taut. I then pinned the towel and it worked just perfect!

The finished scarf is quite pretty and I am very pleased with it! Love the colors in it - I suspect it will "go with" almost anything since there is a ton of colors in there. It's quite soft and squishy still. And the length ended up making it versatile in how I can wrap it around my neck. I am very pleased!
 

And here is the "bath water" to demonstrate how much dye came out of this yarn after a soak. As usual, blocking made a huge difference in this project. I am more and more a fan of blocking even though it delays my gratification.

More specific project notes can be found on my project page on Ravelry.