Time for hats!

Ugh, was Monday grody out. Here I was, wearing just a fleece, and a cold, rainy hail started up just in time for my afternoon tromp around campus. To add insult to injury, my hat supply is nil. I have one manly striped chullo hat that everybody loves and asks me if I knit... sadly, it came from Target.

Shedir was kind of languishing, and you know what? It looked like crap. I don't know if it was the yarn (Cascade 220 -- I seriously think this skein is cursed; this is either the second or third hat it Does Not Want To Be) or the fact that I lost my place or the fact that blocking had better work miracles on that thing, because I had no definition. It just looked poopy, and I didn't feel like doing all those teeny little cables.

So last night I pulled up my Ravelry queue (oh, the joy!) and checked to see if I had a reasonably simple non-colorwork hat I could whip up in under a week. Turns out I did: the Parrotfish Topper, based on Cookie A's near-ubiquitous Pomatomus sock pattern. I have some leftover superwash fingering weight stuff in maroon, so it's perfect. Right now I'm done with the 10 rows for the cuff, and it just looks so cute and crisp with those snappy little ktbl ribs! Unfortunately, i worry that I have made a mistake in sizing, as I have a head that is, to quote Mike Myers, "like Sputnik," so we shall see whether a pretty pretty hat ends up on the head of me or someone smaller :P

The lovely and excellent Froggy helped me prioritize: hat for me, then baby presents for two important early-December babies, then Koolhaas.

As for Violets... well, I finished the center section, but then there's this weird stitch pickup thing that I don't really get because Hazel Carter was trying to be helpful but it just confused me. I think I might have it, but it doesn't matter -- I'm fighting with my mom again, and we all know I only work on it when I'm not mad. Grrr, grrrr! I'm sure I'll get to it next week or something, though; I just like a little cool-off period, and then life goes on.

*giggle*

I love how, in looking over my past blog posts, a good half of the titles have something to do with the fact that I'm either apologizing for my blog absence or simply acknowledging that I am still alive. (I think the rest are complaining about something. Way to be, Mads.)

It is a lazy, lovely Sunday morning, and the sun is out after a dreadfully grody week full of almost-rain and too much wind. Lots of TV knitting took place huddled on my couch :P Yesterday, however, was a perfect fall day. I spent the afternoon out and about, but I think I knit about two rows on Violets by the River while waiting for my bf to finish something on the computer. I THINK I've completed all I need to do for the center section; I'm supposed to end up with 18 little lacy stamps across. Of course, I am not sure if this is big enough -- I like things slightly larger, and I seriously have no concept of gauge. Swatching does jack squat for me and I typically end up way smaller than I should be.

So who knows. I'll stretch it out on my circ (I think it's 29") and maybe pin it out a little. Who knows how big the border will be, either.

I think I should probably do at least two more :P

As for Shedir, it continues apace with one notable change. I switched yarns to a skein of brilliantly teal Cascade 220 I've had lying around since late 2004. It's been frogged a couple times, I think :P The reason was slightly goofy. The Ultra Alpaca was indeed nice, but I realized that it's my mom's favorite color (she likes light, dusky, slate-y greens) and I should probably save it for something for her, since I didn't particularly care what color something was for me. The teal is pretty decent but I'm beginning to wonder if the cables will stand out enoguh with such a deep color. Still, it seems to be okay. I'm a couple rows into the first pattern repeat.

Got the 2007 IK Holiday Gifts issue, and all I can say is WHOA, what a winner! So many great projects, and they're all new. I have to say that I did a bit of public whining with last year's issue, seeing as so many of the projects had been recycled from other IK issues and books. Now, I don't own too many of the books, but I had most of those magazines, so I was a bit perturbed at the lack of new content.

No problem this year! There's a great variety, some of which may tempt me into making some things I normally wouldn't. I LOVE the Koolhaas hat (in fact, I wanted to make that instead of Shedir, but whatevs), and there are a couple pairs of socks that might actually tempt me to pick up the ol' dpns again. That's saying something.

Finally, Ravelry continues to enthrall me. I am always finding new ideas, new tidbits of info, and new (old) friends. What an awesome resource.

It's a small world after all...

No need to thank me for getting that song in your head now. Here's a fix: "Yellow Submarine."

So I was bumming around on the internet the other day and looking for some new knitting blogs to read. There are a couple ways I can do that; one of them is looking at the sidebars of other blogs I currently read. Anyways, I was reading Jessimuhka Knits because I know the aforementioned Jessimuhka from a LiveJournal community we both frequent. So I was looking at her blogroll, and I see that she is friends with someone whose name looks a little familiar. Long story short, it happens to be my cousin P.'s wife, C., and she and Jessimuhka hang out in a knitting group together. In San Diego. (I haven't seen either C. or P. since my grandma's birthday in 2004, and I've heard news from them only slightly more frequently.)

So. I log on to Ravelry and see that C. is on there too, so I send her a message. She is surprised but happy to hear from me. She says she won't have much time to knit for a while, though, as she and P. are expecting a baby girl. Next week.

Huh.

So that makes [counts on fingers...] four baby sweaters I need by next Monday.

****
I ripped out my Sidewinders on my third attempt because the increases looked so incredibly awful. The instructions said to use a bar increase, whereas I always just increase with a kfb or pfb for everything, but the bar increase left giant holes. I wouldn't have minded quite so much (hey, at least they look vaguely intentional if they're symmetrical) except that the decreases on the other side of the toe REALLY made it look wonky. Back to the ballwinder it went.

(The intended recipient ended up having her surgery and doing just fine, so that's good news.)

I knit furiously on Violets by the River while sitting through two quarters of putrid football at a sports bar last Saturday when I should have been studying for a midterm. (I think the ferocity came from the need to escape brain freeze. I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that I also successfully broke up my Sunday study session by mentioning my plan to use yarn in the corn maze next week.) Just a couple more quick iterations of the main motif across the top and I'll switch the the Feather and Fan along the edges. I'll have to pin it out a bit first, though, to see if it merits a slightly larger adaptation.

Started in on Shedir for myself in a dusky green Berroco Ultra Alpaca because I need a winter hat and, well, I felt like knitting last night but was too lazy to go out to get Violets out of the car :P

My laziness knows no bounds.