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My family had a sense of foreboding the day the Craftsy box was delivered to the door by the UPS man. Inside... yarn. Yes. Only Yarn. There are the people who are organized, and find the perfect pattern and make sure they have the right needles and hooks and then buy the yarn, enough yarn, to complete the project. Then there are those who fall in love with yarn by color, texture, and let's not forget bargain prices, without having a clue what they are going to do with it... yet. Count me in the latter category. Usually I buy one or two skeins because I can't resist, and then I have to figure out what I can make with my limited yardage. Often this means a scarf or hat. I have made my share of scarves, trust me. And dishcloths. After awhile I get rectangle fatigue, and have to switch it up to circular. Besides, babies can't wear scarves (choking hazard), but they do need something to cover their little heads. See, I actually possess some practical inclinations. Since it's too cold right now to make soap (more on that later), and too early to start my garden seeds, I have hit the yarn, hard! It's been helpful to have those few snow days where I've been stuck at home and all the kids' activities have been cancelled. Usually it takes me months to finish anything, but I was able to be super efficient (and also super lax about housekeeping). Thanks to Amazon Prime, I got my needles delivered to my door without having to put any tire chains on the car. Oh, and the kids got a lesson on being more independent!
So here is the first day of snow with my stuff to do. The books pretty much remained a platform for the knitting.
This hat was my first attempt at eyelets, and my circular needles disconnected three times, so there was much frustration and panic as I attempted to pick up the dropped stitches. I ended up throwing away the circular needles after ineffectively trying to glue them back together, and switching to double pointed needles to finish the hat.
This is my second hat. I found two similar patterns for this Banana Republic knock off. Apparently, this hat costs $50 in the store... is that insane? Anyway, the first pattern said to use size 7 needles for the brim, and the second pattern said to use size 10 needles. I went with size 10 since more people had left reviews on that one. Now I wish I had gone with the size 7's. The brim is really loose. It can be modified somewhat by sewing the button flap in a tighter circumference, so all was not lost. I didn't have a 2 inch button, but I did have some FIMO clay leftover from a different project, so decided to try making my own buttons out of that. They turned out way better than I expected. The yarn is 100% handspun wool, so a bit itchy, but isn't the color gorgeous? I may make a soft liner for the inside of the hat, just to keep the wearer from giving the impression that they have head lice or something.
Remember the awful circular needles I threw away? Well, turns out you can actually repurpose those needles. I dug the thing out of the trash can when I needed a pin for a short scarf. Hot glue, some glass beads on a headpin, and voila! And although this is a post about hats... that scarf. I had to frog the thing a few times because the yarn was horrible to work with, even though I think I was temporarily blinded by all the sparkles when I bought the stuff at Michael's. So it started as a hat, and I soon realized the yarn was too thick, pulled it apart, started a knit scarf using the Raspberry stitch. About 5 rows in, when my yarn kept splitting, I decided a crochet hook might be easier. Guess what? You can do the same stitch in crochet and only have ONE loop to drive you nuts. The third time starting over, it worked much better. I am never ever buying that yarn again! Here's the challenge for you... can you find the camouflaged pin on the scarf? Uh, I think maybe the beads matched a little too well.
Last but not least, I finally put the buttons on this crochet cap. I loved the yarn on this. It's a charcoal gray with a bit of rainbow sparkle in it and so super soft. I made this for one of my friends who just finished her chemo course today. She is the mom of twins who are in Talia's class and has handled her cancer treatments, and life in general, with grace and an amazing upbeat attitude. I'm hoping this is just like a cuddle around her head. I made a similar one for a friend of a friend who was diagnosed with brain cancer, and apparently she wore it to all her treatments, so it's become my "go to" pattern for chemo caps. To me, it's stylish and yet forgiving of different head sizes, and I definitely want my friends to feel as pretty and as loved as possible!
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