It’s been a while since I last posted anything, but I have actually been knitting stuff. I made more booties (and then didn’t photograph them, but more on that later), but the big project was the scarf that I made for The Boy. It was a broken rib scarf, and if I’d had any idea how much work that was going to be, I probably wouldn’t have slacked off until late-mid December. I started it when I bought the yarn in October, but then got bored with how slow it was coming. Fast forward to the week before Christmas, when I realized that I had a problem on my hands.

How to finish without my fingers falling off? It wasn’t easy. I stopped hating the pattern so much and became an automaton, and fell in love with the cashmerino yarn, which also helped a lot. I watched a whole lot of Buffy dvds until the wee hours of the morning, but I finished a whole 20-some odd hours before Christmas, so GO ME. Below, the finished product:

Wow. I just realized how horribly blurry this picture is (this may be why you’re not supposed to take pictures of FOs at 3 am, after 7 hours of marathon knitting and cursing).

I finally sent out four pairs of booties that I’d been holding hostage longer than was decent. I stupidly forgot to take pictures of them (more for color variety, since they were all made from the same pattern), but one of my friends was kind enough to send me a picture of her son wearing them. This is the first time that I’ve seen my booties on a human. Cute! She said that he usually hates socks, but kept these on for a few hours, which tickled me to no end. I’m honored. The kid lives in the South, and it wasn’t that cold there on Christmas, so I salute the trooper. The pattern is made for a baby of about six months, so they’re kind of huge on him right now, but at least they’ll last for a while.

After I finished the hat for EJ’s dolly, I had to make one for him. I measured his head first, and the thing is 20 inches around, which is kind of nuts, but whatever. He was pretty stoked that I decided to make him a hat. He’s really fascinated by my knitting, so I think I’ll teach him next year when he has better motor skills. He’s pretty bright.

I used the same Paton’s Classic Wool Merino that I’d used for the doll’s hat, but I cast on 48 stitches this time. Maybe it’s overkill, but I don’t know for sure until EJ tries on the hat. Sammy graciously agreed to try it on again (she’s a great gal, that Sammy). I think the width is correct, but it might be too long.

I’m really proud because I finally (after two days, I know) figured out how to do the mattress stitch properly. I really liked the finished product on the hat, but now I wonder, how would the mattress stitch seam work on hats that are flipped back up on the bottom? What seam is used then? Or haven’t I figured out mattress stitch to the degree I think I have? Oy. I will keep looking around and see if I can figure this out.

So, I had such a good time making the first 1 hour hat that I decided to make one for my nephew, Satanski. I didn’t want to use the crappy acrylic from the first hat, so I got some wool out of my stash. I held two strands of Paton’s Classic Merino Wool together and cast on 16 stitches, since Satanski is only 2.

That was a pretty horrible idea. I could see pretty much straight away that this thing was not going to be nearly big enough, but since I’d already started, I decided to continue and make a hat for the baby doll that Satanski alternately nurtures and bludgeons, according to his mood.

Obviously, this tiny hat took next to no time to make (although it did take a minute or so of wrestling to fit it on the doll’s surprisingly massive head).

I made Allison Blevins’ 1 hour hat. It took me a little longer than an hour, but all in all, not horrible for my first hat. What WAS horrible was the fabric I was using, Schoeller + Stahl’s Big Ball. I originally bought it for use in a baby blanket, which I actually did make and finish. I got the yarn for the LYS, and showed the very helpful owner the pattern that I wanted to make. She suggested that I modify it to make better use of the yarn, and gave me a pattern based on the blanket I wanted to make. Unfortunately, though, my lack of spatial ability came back to bite me in the butt, because I followed the instructions exactly — never wondering why I only had to cast on 64 stitches — and ended up with a blanket more appropriate for a doll than a human infant. SO! I decided to make another one, and though I found more appropriate lengths for the blanket, but for some reason or another, kept ballsing it up before I’d ever gotten to a decent length.

But that was a while ago, so I forgot 1) that I had a boatload of that yarn left and 2) that I kind of hated the feel of it, because it was actually really pretty, foreign, acrylic (ugh). So I bought more, and now I have 2.5 balls of that stuff left, which, no. Not cool at all. So I used it to make a hat, which came out pretty cute, despite the cheap acrylic it was made from.

So. My first hat, as modeled by Sammy, teddy bear extraordinaire!