Since we’ve already determined that my head is not massive, I needed a better-fitting hat. I really enjoyed the ginormous hat I made, so I set out to make another one that actually did fit me. It was pretty fun, and I finished in two days. I added a pom-pom (I’ve had a maker for years, and the video linked here showed me how to use it) and braided the sides, instead of doing an i-cord. I also carried the colors up the side, instead of changing and breaking colors throughout.

I think that the next time I make this hat, I won’t make the earflaps so large. Other than that, I love the way it came out!

I meant to finish weaving in my the ends of my OpArt Blanket. Really, I did. It was too hot to do anything outside, so it seemed like a good idea to try to be useful in here. Unfortunately, I seem to have left my tapestry needles at work after my last In Stitches meeting, so that idea went out the window. Then I tried to work on A’s socks, but by now I sort of hate looking at them. I think I’m going to go back to one sock at a time. Aside from the first pair I made, when I was still learning what I was doing, I’ve never let nearly this much time go before finishing a pair. I considered starting my Buttony Sweater that I bought the yarn for last year, but I haven’t ever made a sweater before, and I wanted to learn more about sweater construction before I start; it seems that the pattern is pretty bare, and others who’ve knit it stated that they had or wished they had added some shaping. So that was out the window. AND THEN I decided to do the gauge for a new scarf that I wanted to start, but I couldn’t find any size five needles, which at first seemed insane, until I realized that most of my size 5s are circulars, and I think the one straight pair that I own is in use by an In Stitches member (not like I know who, though).

Well, there’s always tomorrow, right?

I finished Satanski’s mittens, and am really pleased with how they came out. Mittens are great! Here’s the final product:

I finished Satanski’s scarf, and it came out great! I love this yarn (Malabrigo Worsted, in Oceanus), and Satanski loves his scarf. That picture to the left shows what the scarf looked like last night, when I was about 60% of the way finished. I’m going to get started on matching mittens tomorrow, with a hat to follow soon thereafter. I need to block the scarf, as right now all it wants to do is roll itself back into a ball, but that means that I might as well block all the other stuff I’ve been ignoring for a while. Block party tomorrow!

Sorry, I’m groaning over here, too. 

This is what the OpArt blanket is looking like these days. That kid is due nigh on two months from now and I still don’t know when we’ll be having his dad’s baby shower at work, so I should definitely get the lead out and start doing a lot of work on this again. Even after I’m done knitting, I’m going to be weaving in ends forever, so I should just do it already.

I had high hopes for the scarf that I was going to make Satanski. I sat down, thought of a pattern, and charted it. All was well, until I realized that my chart was not taking into account the two decreases I need to work on each row to even out the two yarn overs I was including. I think I tried to get too fancy, too fast, and the whole thing just annoyed me. So I decided to modify a baby blanket pattern from Debbie Stoller’s Stitch and Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook and make it into a scarf instead. I’ve made the Big, Bad Baby Blanket a couple of times already (and I’m pretty sure I have a third one somewhere on a set of circulars), so by now the pattern is pretty much dead easy for me. I’m hoping that I will have enough yarn left over afterward to make the kid a pair of mittens, or even a hat. I can’t remember what the name of the yarn is, because I bought and had it wound in Vermont, and cannot find the label at all. I just started it yesterday, but it’s kid-sized and knitting up quickly, so I will upload photos once I get home from work.

My OpArt is coming along well. I’m up to 132 stitches in each section. I need to pay more attention though, because a couple of rounds ago I dropped a stitch about six rows down, and that was super annoying to fix in pattern.