I like hats!

I like hats. I think they are highly under rated these days. It used to be that hats were a necessary fashion accessory. Now, with the exception of the plethora of baseball caps out there, no one ever wears hats. I have my own nice collection of hats. Some are silly, some are fun, some are functional, and I wear them all!


(Note: closet shelf not usually this neat)

I wore the black bowler hat (which has a little shamrock pin on the side) through out college. It kind of became my trademark. When I'm feeling a little spunky, I wear it to work :-) I got the cowboy hat in Albuqurque, NM when I was going for a horseback ride along the Rio Grande and decided I needed something to really look the part. And with my love of Disney, I guess it's no surprise that I have several hats from Disney World. The Cheshire Cat hat brought lots of smiles when I wore it to work on Halloween. And of course, when you have the kind of blond, fair, freckled complexion that I do, it's necessary to have hats to keep the sun off my face...at least, that's how I justify it to Psycling when I go buy yet another hat.

So, with my love of hats, it is probably not surprising that I quickly learned to knit in the round so I could knit my own. I learned how to make hats by knitting with a group of women from church, as we knit hats for the homeless men that stay at the church night shelter. I knit and donated several hats to that program last year. Of course, this was before I started blogging and phtographing my FOs.



These are some of the hats that didn't quite get turned in on time for last years hat drive. They will still be donated to chartiy. I'll probably take them to be collected when I go see the Yarn Harlot in mid-September.

Of course, I had to knit a few hats for my own collection as well. I decided a while back that I needed to use up some of the yarn in my stash, and didn't buy any new yarn for a while. I had some great warm, soft, fuzzy black yarn just calling to be made into a hat. Well, turned out I had enough for two hats!

First, I introduce le Beret!


I'd give you the specs, but I'm afraid I don't remember what the yarn was, and the pattern was something I found online somewhere...but I really like it. It's warm, and I think it has some great personality to it. I'm looking forward to the couple of days we have down here in Hotlanta when it might actually be cool enough to wear it.

When I finished the Beret, and realized I still had quite a bit of yarn left, I cast on for my Wylie Hat.

I call it my Wylie cat because Wylie is the name of my black kitty, pictured here. Can't you tell how happy he was to be part of this photo shoot? Anyway, again, I don't remember the yarn, but the pattern is the Kittyville Hat from Stitch 'n Bitch by Debbie Stoller.

I already have a few new hat ideas rolling around in my head, but I might not be able to share them til after Christmas...I don't want to ruin anyone's surprise.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I have to say, it's a good thing I'm loving knitting this Seraphim shawl, because with all the ripping back and re-knitting I'm doing, if I didn't love this project, I'd probably go nuts. I was just starting chart 3 (the LAST one before the edge chart) when I noticed that somewhere along the way, my lace pattern got off. Irreparably off. Several rows back. So I had to rip back. And rip back some more. It was rather dejecting, knowing that Friday night, I was knitting up row one of Chart 3, and by Sunday night, I was still moving backwards on chart 2. By Monday night, I was finally able to start moving forward again...but I still have another 4-5 rows to go before I'm back where I was on Friday. I've been set back almost a week. And for something that I should have been able to catch. I'm at a point in the pattern where you can very easily see what it's supposed to be doing. If I had been paying attention to what I was doing, I would have seen this mistake when it happened, taken a few minutes to fix it, and been on my way. But, since I wasn't watching and thinking as I was knitting, I'm set back a week.

Of course, I say I had to rip back. "Had to" is a very interesting phrase. This mistake was very subtle, one that I had to search for to find the cause of so I'd know how far back to rip. One that probably no one else would notice, and certainly not the recipient of the shawl. But, therein lies the Perfectionist's Curse. I would know. And because of that, I couldn't, in good conscience, let it go. I HAD...TO...FIX...IT. In my eyes, it was horrendous, disfigured in a phantom-of-the-opera kind of way. I tried to let it go...I really did. But that Type A that I try to keep lying dormant reared it's ugly head. So I had to rip.

I may be a Type-A perfectionist, but I'm also an optimist. And there are a few silver linings here. One, I was already starting to mourn for the finishing of the shawl. I'm having such a great time knitting it, that I was already starting to realize that I would feel a loss when I finished. Guess I just pushed that day back by a week. Two, I'm learning. My technique is getting much better. I'm much more comfortable with the pattern and with lace knitting in general. I'm learning what to look for, and how to catch mistakes before they happen...something that could play an important role in not losing another week to unknitting. Three, two steps forward and one step back is still a net gain, right? I am making progress, it's just slower than I thought. It gives me more time to appreciate my malabrigo and addis and gorgeous colorway, and the challenge that is this shawl. I'm happiest when my brain is engaged, and she's definitely keeping it working. And finally, I've gotten a much needed knitting attitude adjustment. I got cocky and over confident and complacent in my Seraphim knitting. And that's what led to the mistake in the first place. The Seraphim has put me back in my place...and I think we will both be better off because of it.

Perfect Weekend

This weekend was a perfect weekend, for so many reasons. The first and biggest reason my weekend was so perfect?

Psycling is home! It's great to have him home again, cuddling, hugging, and enjoying my cooking :-)

So what else makes for a perfect weekend?


Some time with this:







And lots of time curled up with this:






I hope everyone else out there in blogland had a good weekend too :-)

Knitting Riddle #1

Question: What happens when you are knitting at work over lunch and you realize you forgot your stitch markers?

Answer: Paper Clips!



I've also found paper clips to serve other knitting purposes as well...they can help pick up dropped stitches if you don't have a crochet hook small enough. Or, if (hypothtically of course...this would never actually happen) you discover that you some how picked up an extra stitch, but you're not sure where, and you want to k2tog to fix it, you can use the paper clip to mark where you should do that so you remember next time around...

On another note, I aplogize for my lack of blogginess...it's amazing how life can just take off on you. I'll try to be better, but no promises, since my Harry Potter 7 came yesterday!