May Yarn Along: A Hat Knitting Marathon!

The month of April was very productive for me, knitting-wise. Mostly in the last week too. I decided (last-minute) to donate craft items to our church craft sale coming up this Saturday and knit 6 hats in 5 days. Yes, my hands are very sore, thanks for asking. The pattern I used is the Beloved bonnet by Tin Can Knits. I made them in varying sizes and made each just a little bit different. I also cleaned a decent amount of yarn out of my stash, which is the best part of all. You can see individual photos of these on my 2019 FO page as well.

It's a very quick knit, because the pattern is simple and straightforward. It's easy to memorize so you don't need to waste time referring back to the pattern.

This one is so hard to photograph accurately!
It's darker like in the photo above but I wanted to show all the color in it.

I have a very difficult time making pom poms but I had a lot of practice with these hats and I absolutely love how they turned out!

I have also made a little progress on my Bounce blanket, another pattern from Tin Can Knits.

More links here: May Yarn Along.

April Howler

Anyone in Minnesota and Wisconsin are getting slippery roads all weekend. With the wet snow, hail and sleet, and the ridiculous wind in my area, the only solution is to stay inside.

I'm hoping to get some knitting done this afternoon but I also pulled out a tea cup from my set of fine china to help brighten things up inside.

I haven't worked on any knitting since mid March. We have been so busy lately and there's no sign of slowing down anytime soon! But I've definitely added length since the last time I shared this project back in February or March.

FO Friday: Pith Helmet!

I made this hat last night! I cast on around 5 and cast off at about 9:30. This was not a planned project, believe it or not. I was talking about my little one taking the first steps in crawling in my family group chat. Of course one of the uncles said a pith hat was required for a little boy's adventures. Ravelry only has crochet pith hat patterns so I did a quick Google search and this was the only knit hat I found.

Last night, prior to blocking

The construction of the brim was a bit tedious. It was hard to see what she was doing with it even though the sections of the brim are labeled. It has a triangular 3D shape, so the first 12 rows of the pattern eventually get folded under and you don't see them on the outside of the hat.

Then the pattern tells you to switch the last stitches to the next needle back. I think I would skip this if I make this hat again. My stitch count got totally out of whack and I'm still not sure if that was me screwing up the last decrease row before the brim was done, or just trying to carefully follow along with what the instructions said to do.

Shaping and inside of brim.

Considering the difficulty I had visualizing what the instructions were telling me, I am very happy with how this came out. I think I'll try to make another one if I can at some point. I need to be able to picture things mentally when I do patterns like this, and the way it was written produced the result but was hard to follow, if that makes sense.

I'm blocking it on one of the kid's lanterns! I was looking for a ball but the light was the perfect shape.

I used a skein of hand spun and dyed yarn that I bought from The Fine Lime. I used size 10US double point needles because I was shooting for a 12 month size. The pattern doesn't specify the size but it implies it was for a newborn or young infant. I do think my gauge adjustment worked great.

Yarn Along: February 2019

I'm finally knitting and reading again. Shocking, I know!

I started working on the Bounce blanket by Tin Can Knits this week. I originally planned to give this as a gift last summer but I just couldn't find time. I'm making this lap-blanket sized and started by casting on 165 stitches. The color scheme started out looking a bit strange but once I doubled up on the gold yarn it looks much better. Not quite so bare any more. I'll have to go back and do some ripping and re knitting the first two sections of gold garter stitch.

I'm reading Outlander with a friend of mine. We started at the beginning of January and I'm in the lead, on chapter 9.

These flowers were the inspiration for my color scheme. Click this link for more Yarn Along inspiration.

FO: Bonfire Blanket

I finished this blanket yesterday! My second project this year! Sad, right?

This is a pattern by Tin Can Knits. I used Bernat  Blanket yarn in Country Blue. The first photo is truest to the color of the blanket. The button is custom made by Wooly Moss Roots (on Etsy) with a date engraved on it. This was a wedding gift for someone in the family.

Yarn Along

I'm still working on the Bonfire Blanket. So this is going to be sort of a deja vu post. Sorry guys. I promise it's significantly longer than last time and I'm planning to bind off this weekend. It is a gift for my brother in law and his brand new wife. I had an extra week to work on it and add length since they aren't opening gifts until they return from their honeymoon.

Button made and customized by Wooly Moss Roots

I started reading The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis this summer. It's good although like my knitting, I really haven't had spare time to sit and read without interruption. For those not familiar with it, it is a series of letters between two devils, trying to drag an ordinary man to hell.

"Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without signposts, without milestones."

More Yarn Along here.

County Fair Knitting

I submitted two sweaters to our county fair this year. One was the cabled sweater I made for my husband and the other was the Spotlight pullover I made in a baby size.

The judge noted that the cabled sweater needed to be cleaned and pills needed to be removed in order to place better. Oops. I removed as much of the pilling as I could, and I did hand wash it, but having animals in the house makes things tough to keep clean.

The large cabled sweater was entered into the "adult clothing" section, and the baby sweater was entered into the "colors, carrying yarn" section. I also entered dehydrated mango chips (blue ribbon) and a jar of raspberry jam, which didn't place.

I'm continuing to work on the Bonfire blanket. I will be finished by the end of this month, as that's my deadline, so stay tuned to see the finished project!