hats | Page 2

FO Friday: Nameless Hat

I finished a new hat this week!

It’s a new design, but I’m drawing a blank on a name for it. If you have any ideas, let me know!

The specs:

Pattern: My own (probably will be released this month, depending if I decide the pattern needs testing)

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Chunky in Natural. While the yarn was as squishy and delicious to knit with as ever, it was sort of bizarre to have colorless Madelinetosh. I really love the dyeing, so I think I’ll probably stay away from this shade in the future. I do like the color with my reddish hair, however!

Notes: The lace and cable pattern I decided to use seemed very straightforward… until I tried to convert it to knitting in the round rather than flat. Many swatches later, I figured out that the end of round marker needs to be moved forward one stitch at the end of each pattern repeat. That also gives the hat a neat spiral effect.

I decided to do a cable-cast on instead of my usual long-tail, because it plays more nicely with the garter stitch brim. The cable-cast on hurts my hands, and I find it much more fiddly than the long-tail, but I think the results were worth it. You can see the cast-on edge pretty well in this work-in-progress pic:

I’m participating in Madelinetosh May, an event put on by the Madelinetosh Lovers group on Ravelry, so I’m going to try to get one more Tosh hat design done before the month is up!

Pre-Christmas Check In!

T minus five days until Christmas! After seeing some seriously panicked threads on Ravelry, I’m really happy I decided to go easy on the gift knitting this year.

This could have been me.

No one in my family reads my blog regularly except for my husband (hi honey!), so I feel safe in sharing my gifting plans. I’m going to give my Texture Times Two hat and scarf to my mom.

Picture this….

….on my adorable mother! Isn’t it perfect?

I usually try to hang onto my samples, but she loved them so much when I showed them to her that I can’t resist surprising her.

I also mailed off the Sweet Peasy for my niece.

The Latte Baby Coat, though… I decided not to send it. After blocking, I discovered the buttons I’d been planning to use were too big for the buttonholes (boo!). Also, the front edge is a little ruffly. Possibly it’s one of those things only I would ever notice, but I hate gifting imperfect things, y’know? So I think I’m going to buy new buttons, reblock it, and give it to her next month.

But even that’s not enough to kill my relaxed mood. So different from last December, when I was frantically trying to finish these:

Ironically, we aren’t even going to be there to use them this year.

Are you knitting any gifts this year? How’s it going?

FO Friday: Texture Times Two Hat

I finished the texture hat to match the purple texture scarf!

It came out great! The hat is fully reversible and looks just as cool on both sides as the scarf.

The specs:

Pattern: My own, coming soon (with matching scarf).

Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Purple Mystery, 1 skein. What can you say that hasn’t been said about Malabrigo? It’s like knitting with clouds.

Notes: Even after a whole scarf and a hat, I still really like this texture pattern. The two-in-one effect is awesome. I finally figured out a good name for the set, too: Texture Times Two!

We had fun with the photoshoot on what turned out to be one of the last days with leaves still on the trees: