I watched this video the first time I made a hat with a pompom. I found these women hilarious and, even better, they taught me how to use my pompom maker, which was sadly lacking in instructions. I watched this video again tonight when I went to make a pompom for a new hat I finished. Perhaps because it wasn’t 2 am and I wasn’t coming off the high of finishing a hat that actually fit my head (as opposed to this monstrosity), I found the video a lot less entertaining this time around. Still, Hatapalooza 2010, or whatever I’m calling this thing, is going pretty well. I may actually finish all the hats I intend to make!

I’m in the process of blocking the two hats that I most recently finished. I had to stretch the white one a fair amount, but thanks to one of Satanski’s handy soccer balls (covered by a plastic bag), I think it will end up more or less the correct size.

I made the pompom for the second swirly hat, and will attach it once the hat has finished blocking.

Took the picture at a weird angle. This hat isn't crooked, I promise.

I made this hat for Amy Sue. It’s totally improvised, and halfway through, I already knew how I’d do things differently. Maybe I’ll get a chance to put those ideas into action on some other hat. I really like it, though, and I hope that blocking it will allow it to grow a bit; Amy has so much curly hair!

This hat is for my brother’s fiance, who asked me for a hat when she saw me make one for Satanski. I saw this pattern and thought it would be fun to make, and it was! I modified the pattern a bit, in that I didn’t make a 4 inch brim (why cover up this awesomeness??), and ended the hat by grafting together a total of 20 stitches, but otherwise stayed faithful to it. I used different yarns for the brim and the rest of the hat, and I love how well they match each other.

Since it’s not my hat, I just took crappy cell phone pictures of me wearing it. When T wears it, I’ll be sure to use a camera and take clear photos!

Pattern:
Swirly Hat, by TChemGrrl

Yarns Used:
Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd’s Wool in Lavender for the brim
Cascade 220 Quatro in shades of purple for the rest of the hat

Needle:
Size 7 16″ circular needles
Six 6 Double pointed needles

I’ve finished 3 projects in the last 10 days. How? By picking them carefully. The first was actually a pair of socks that I’d been working on for a month. The fastest I’ve ever made a pair of socks is 6 days, and while I liked the way they came out, I would have gone nuts if I had to try to replicate that pace approximately 8 times in a month and a half. So my idea from my last post, that I’d do socks for everybody for Christmas, has gone far, far away. Instead, I hit upon something fun and easy: hats! I love hats, and the other two projects that I recently finished were both hats. The great thing about hats is that there is a ton of variety and changing fabrics and colors can really renew your interest in the category of hats as a whole. Plus, I’ve received 3 (two credible) requests for hats recently, so I know that they’re useful and appreciated.

Because hats are faster and easier to make, I’ve expanded my list, and now have about 12 people for whom I’d like to make hats. That means I need to make tracks, because Christmas is just over a month away. I’ll have to up the pace I’ve been keeping to make this happen. Whee!

I so enjoyed making my Boyfriendly socks that I started to make myself a pair, as well. I’m using the Temperance pattern, slightly modified, and I really like the way it’s coming out. I will post pictures presently, but all of my sock knitting has made me think that maybe I want to try to make socks for my close friends for Christmas. The difficulties:

• I am lazy
• Christmas is like 50-something days away
• …

Really, that’s it, but isn’t that enough? I’d have to make 7 pairs of socks (at least, I’m still putting together the list). I don’t know if I’m up to this. I have a bunch of friends with winter birthdays, so maybe I’ll save theirs for their birthdays in January and February. This could work…

So I made the boy a pair of socks for being an all-around good sport (plus, he bought me a boatload of expensive yarn, and who doesn’t love a generous guy)? I didn’t use a pattern, because boy socks don’t have to be that fancy, so it’s just a simple toe-up 4×2 and 3×2 rib. I started them two at a time on the same needle, and then remembered how much I hate that, so separated them. I did short row heels using Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ method (pdf), which I really liked.

I had such a good time making these socks that I decided to make a pair of socks for myself. They’re purple and adorable. Will post photos when finished.

It’s a pity that not everybody agrees with me. Now vampire ridiculousness has infiltrated the world of knitting. I guess I should have known this was coming, what will all the Twilight groups on Ravelry. The sad thing is that I looked through the patterns, and a lot of them are really cute and have nothing to do with vampires! The taint of the Cullens is too strong for me to consider purchasing this, but I might borrow it from the library.

Vogue Knitting Magazine is having a sale on all of their patterns, which is kind of awesome. There are lots of pretty things that I’d love to knit if I had unlimited time and an endless yarn budget. Here are some patterns that I like:

Then there are things that I would have to be already dead to be seen in.

Why????

Basically, aside from the knitting Meetups that I conduct once or twice a month, I haven’t knit at all since May. I can’t even contemplate working with yarn when it’s over 90 degrees, and it has only dropped under that for maybe a week since late spring. I want to finish my awesomely pretty sweater, though, so I may suck it up and get going again soon. We shall see.

Here’s a great short film about how to be on your own. I love my own company, and I can’t always stand to be around other people. A lot of people I know can’t do anything on their own, which I think is sad, but the next time somebody asks me why I like to go off on my own, I’m going to show him or her this video.

I was just zipping along with my Heather Hoodie, feeling inordinantly proud of myself and my first sweater. I’d even cleverly translated it into being worked in the round, since Nicole and seaming are not BFFs. So just when I thought that I’d need to borrow a hand to give myself as many pats on the back as I deserved, I realized that I hadn’t set aside stitches for my armholes. Oh. Hell. No.

So I had a couple of options. The first was to frog, just the thought of which made my girlnads shrivel up. The next possibility was to steek. And I’ve wanted to steek for so long!!! But I knew that this would be a dicier option, since I hadn’t included any extra stitches for a steek, so anything I would cut would technically be something that I probably wanted to keep. I went to my LYS and asked how I’d do a crochet steek, since I don’t 1) own a sewing machine or 2) know how to use one. Their suggestion was that I frog back to the point where I would have put in the armholes. I could see how this would be a reasonable and safe course of action to take, but once I explained that I preferred to try steeking, they gamely looked on youtube to see if they could find anything to help me.

The good news is that we found a video (although I’ve never been able to find that one again; humbug), and the bad news is that I think we misunderstood it. So I crocheted just one leg of the knit stitch that would form the edge of the steek. That didn’t seem exactly right to me, and I was unwilling to cut until I was as sure as possible that I was doing the right thing, so I put that aside and went back the evil socks. I finished those, and the final post will be up in a day or two (or whenever I’m over the 4.5 hours of end-weaving I did).

I had seen Eunny Jang’s steeking chronicles before,  but they didn’t make sense to me until I actually had a swatch, some contrasting yarn, and a crochet hook in front of me. I also found Jared Flood’s largely visual explanation of steeking quite useful.

My swatch, with the two crocheted lines of stitches

The first time I did this, I did it wrong. I know, you thought I’d do it perfectly right from the gate. Not so. The first time I crocheted my two sets of stitches, I left a leg of a knit stitch in between. Why? I no longer know, but it made sense four hours ago.

Even that provided acceptable results.

Look, not connected, and not unraveled!

I just hated the fact that I’d unnecessarily burned a stitch. So I tried it again.

Second set of crocheted stitches.

This time, there was no knit stitch between the two lines of crochet. Pulling apart the two sides looked like some sort of obscene grimace. Needless to say, I loved this.

Say cheese!

You can see the purl bumps in between the crocheted stitches. This is what is cut.

Not that I’m an expert or anything, but I am now gaining confidence in my ability to crochet steek. I’m still looking for a way to shore up my cast on and bound off edges, as those are tricksy to secure. Both Jang and Flood mentioned this, so I know that there is an acceptable solution out there, and since the fabric of my sweater is bulky, I am not opposed to just adding to the bulk by putting in a million securing stitches. It all gets folded under anyway (or so I’ve heard, I haven’t gotten up to that yet)!

It’s late and I’m tired, so cutting into my actual sweater isn’t a good idea at all, but I’m glad that I now have a better idea about what I’m going to be doing.

My Heather Hoodie is actually coming out okay. I’ll admit it; I’ve impressed myself. Except for an early hiccup where I didn’t reverse the cables when the pattern changed, it’s been smooth sailing with this one.

Here’s a photo of the back section, isn’t it lovely? Anyways, I realized that I actually have no idea how to do this thing. The cabling is easy as pie, but I’m not sure what will happen when I get to armholes and such. I’ve already bought my buttons, which are so awesome that I am not posting a picture of them until they’re in the sweater (probably). I don’t want to lose my momentum on this one, but I also don’t want to mess it up. I have enlisted the aid of several awesome Ravelers, who I hope will come to my rescue. I’ll keep posting my progress with this one.

It is, in fact, a sweater. Here is my dirty red sweater of guilt (guilt, because I should be finishing those socks). Please note the totally awesome cables that I am doing without cable needles (thanks to Grumperina, who rocks, although I won the most darling set at the LYS holiday swap).

I’ve decided that it’s not procrastination if you’re knitting something else while avoiding the original item.

Up with cables!

Down with boring patterns!

Down with excessive striping!

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!