Hats

I saw the pile of knitting on my side of the sofa over the weekend and realized last week’s finished projects represent a basic kindergarten primary color assortment.

First up, a bright blue hat:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Wolle Roedel Universal Superwash, 100% superwash merino wool, color 835
Needles: size 3 and 4
Size: adult average
Started 11/5 and finished 11/13/2008

I designed this one for Mr. MmmYarn and he found it to be fine in the house, but outdoors his ears were cold so he requested a long, folded brim. I have re-made the hat in the same yarn, this time with a big brim. He’ll get to try it on tomorrow. I’m going to try to write a pattern for it in a couple of sizes but that won’t be ready for a few weeks, I’m sure.

Next up, a long, skinny, yellow scarf:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Schoenbuch Garne Superba 100 4-Fach; 37.5% cotton, 37.5% superwash wool, 25% nylon; color 214
Needles: size 4
Size: 4.5″ x 78″
Started 11/10 and finished 11/28/2008

Even though to my eyes the yarn reads as a yellow, it is composed of two plies of yellow and two plies of white. I didn’t do a burn test, but the yellow looks and feels like the wool and the white looks and feels like the cotton. The chevron pattern is a simple k3 p3 rib on 31 stitches that I shifted one stitch to either side on each row.

And to complete our collection of primary colors, a flash of red:

Sunday was warm so the Mystery Stole dried the same day. Does crawling around on the floor around your blocking bulletin board for an hour count as exercise? Non-aerobic, of course, but definitely a lot of bending and stretching, crouching and reaching. It must count as something as I was incredibly sore Monday morning and am still feeling the effects today.

And where’s the green? I know it’s not primary, but it’s usually included in the grouping of primary colors when a fourth color is called for. Well, the green Apres Surf Hoodie is up next after the re-worked hat. I’m about less than halfway through the hood, having ripped out a good 4.5″ tonight after finding a mistake (!) that I thought I spotted a few weeks ago but must have buried in the back of my in-denial brain. Tonight I decided I couldn’t live with that wonky row in the middle of the lace pattern and out it went!

The craft fair I mentioned a couple of posts ago was a bust this year. I sold one hat. This will in no way finance a yarn crawl at Stitches West, especially not an Mmm… Yarn- sized crawl. That’s OK, though, as work is going to try to hold a second one just before Valentine’s Day, which falls conveniently before Stitches West. I hope the day they hold it is cold enough to freeze one’s ears; I sell much more stuff on cold days than on warm ones.

It has been a rough two months here chez Mmm… Yarn, with more rough months to follow, but the knitting must go on. Blogging will continue to be sporadic.

I spent a good chunk of time Thursday evening and yesterday setting in the sleeves and sewing the seams of the Apres Surf Hoodie. This is what I had yesterday afternoon:

It’s a little tight on the arms and a little baggy on the chest. And a little longer than I’d like, too. After I sewed the shoulder seams, I tried it on and found the front and back to hang halfway down my thighs. Whoa, that wasn’t right! But The Kneedler was right that sewing the seams takes up some length and now it’s only an inch or two longer than I’d like. I will either fold under the stockinette part and make a hem or shorten it. I haven’t decided. In the meantime, I’m knitting away on the hood.

That sad little pile of unraveled chocolate pink cherry yarn you saw 10 days ago is now a complete hat:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Fearless Fibers (on Etsy) 100% superwash merino wool, Chocolate Pink Cherry, held doubled throughout
Needles: size 3
Size: child
Started 8/26 and finished 8/31/2008

Mr. MmmYarn and I are going on vacation in less than 2 weeks and I still need some sort of flat purse that’s easy to stuff in a suitcase. I found a pattern in my pattern binder that I think will work and some possibly suitable yarn in the stash but I’ll have to hustle to get it done in time. Plus I have to think about travel knitting. A knitter’s work is never done.

I wish I could say the big space between my last post and this one was caused by my leading such an exciting life that blogging went by the wayside. Actually, I’ve been watching others lead exciting lives by being Olympians. We pre-record the Olympics so we can breeze through sports and long sections of talk that don’t interest us, but all that extra TV still cuts into blogging time. And knitting time, too, since I can look down and focus on yarn overs and corresponding decreases during the pre- and post-event chatter, but have to look up for the 30 seconds or so it takes a swimmer or gymnast or runner to complete a swim or routine or lap.

Not to say life hasn’t been fun.  Mr. MmmYarn took me out for my birthday last night, to a restaurant at the top of a fancy hotel downtown. We got all dressed up for it (I was in heels), had a tasty dinner, and did a bit of dancing. I find the dressing up part fun, as long as I don’t do it too often. It’s too bad it was so foggy that all we could see was the lit-up sign at the top of a nearby hotel. The rest of the world outside those windows was a wall of solid white.

I am not participating in the Ravelympics. I set myself plenty of self-imposed deadlines and I did not want to add a real one to the mix. I will do some deadline knitting shortly, though, as I have signed up for Mystery Stole 4. Want to see the materials I picked out? The yarn is from the stash (I swatched last night) and I went bead shopping earlier today:

The Mystery Stole may be madness for me, as Mr. MmmYarn and I are going on vacation the Friday after clue #1 is out, meaning I may not even get clue #2 before we leave depending on what time of the day it’s released. So it may be out for travel knitting and I’ll have a ton of catch-up work to do on three stole clues when we get back.

Oddly, though, even doing vacation planning and watching that much TV the week has been productive fiber-wise and I have progress photos to share today.

The little hat grows very slowly as I’m only knitting on it in short bursts, such as waiting in line for my turn with the surprisingly and unusually efficient postal clerk yesterday:

Why no marathon hat knitting? Because I’m working on the Apres Surf Hoodie almost exclusively on bus rides and at home. The sleeves are done, as you know, and this is the back at the beginning of armhole shaping:

Why, oh why, the color must be so washed out every time I snap a photo is a mystery to me. Imagine the green more the shade of a spearmint Tic Tac candy and you’ve just about got it.

Under the Ott-Lite, the 2 ounces of thin orange singles I managed to whack out photographs bright and bold. This is for the orange and purple 4 ply. Here it is, 25% done, atop a background of one of Mr. MmmYarn’s early weaving projects:

All in all, I can’t complain. Except that the baby sweater’s neckline continues to be uncooperative. It’s entirely my fault for not writing down any part of my thought process.

I’ll go put another inch on Apres Surf before it’s time to go chop okra and onions for bhindi do pyaaza for dinner tonight. Yum!

This little hat came and went so fast I didn’t even get a chance to post it as an in-progress project:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Schoeller Esslinger Fortissima, 75% wool, 25% nylon, color 085 (navy blue) held together with Froehlich Wolle Blauband Maxi Ringel, 80% wool, 20% nylon, color 7705 (blue stripes plus a green one)
Needles: size 2
Finished size: Toddler
Started 7/25 and finished 7/26/2008

On Thursday I soaked and blocked the finished sleeves of the Apres Surf Hoodie. I had some tense moments while the yarn was wet, pinning out the suddenly and suprisingly gargantuan sleeves. My gauge swatch, that I actually soaked and blocked (an unusual move for me), apparently lied! The sleeves were supposed to be 23″ long total and mine were nearly 31″ when I pinned them down. I actually pinned the sleeves very loosely, stretching them widthwise very minimally and lengthwise not at all.  Dry, my gauge is off by 1/4 stitch and 1/4 row per inch. I can easily adjust for that and need not worry that my sweater’s sleeves are better suited to an orangutan than to me. I have forgiven the gauge swatch.

Now it’s Sunday night, the little hat is finished, Apres Surf is at a non-portable stage, and I have nothing for the bus ride tomorrow. Back I go to the giant pile of yarn I strewed across the bed this afternoon, to see if I can find something that jumps out at me.

Oh, one more thing! The recipient of the 4 chemo hats I wrote about last month finally got them, and while the Swirl Cap is indeed too small (as I expected), she likes and wears the other three. I am glad I was able to do one little thing to help out.

Last night was the annual S.F. Giants Stitch & Pitch baseball game. I joined two ladies from my knitting group in the stands and cheered along while working on the hat I started Monday night (emergency bus project for Tuesday):

This next photo is a gratuitous one I took at my friend’s request. The player at bat had rather an impressive rear end; unfortunately, my phone’s camera doesn’t zoom or even have a lot of power to begin with, so you’ll have to use your imagination. Or look up player #33 and hope to find something other than a head shot:

The game was pretty good. I found it to have a little less action than the 3 other games I’ve been to, so I spent some time admiring the WIPs and many hand-knitted garments in the stands around me. Some of the babies had exquisite little sweaters on, clearly the children of or closely related to some great knitters. With the bus ride to and from work, then back out to the ballpark and watching the game, I finished the hat, another of the rebel-baby color choices:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Zitron Trekking Pro Natura, 75% superwash wool, 25% bamboo, color 1603, held doubled throughout
Needles: 2
Finished size: Toddler
Started 7/21 and finished 7/22/2008

Fortunately, I come prepared for just such a calamity, so the back of the Apres Surf Hoodie saw some baseball action too:

I know, not much to see there yet.

The giveaways at this year’s game were a Stitch & Pitch baseball hat and apparently a giant pile of Malabrigo that I missed out on by waiting until the 4th inning to go get my freebie. I found 5 large, empty tables and one table with a small pile of black hats. Here we are, in our hats, enjoying the game:

Sorry for the blurriness; a stranger took the photo and she wasn’t familiar with how my phone worked. I’m on the right.

The Giants won, 6 to 3.

Tonight I found my apple cozy / fruit sock engaged in doing something else altogether:

This actually worked very well. I was concerned there might be felting because of the steam generated by my tea but the cozy is doing just fine.

Friday’s pink hat is done:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Fearless Fibers 100% Superwash Merino Wool in Peppermint Pink, held doubled throughout
Needles: size 2
Size: Toddler
Started 7/18 and finished 7/20/2008

The yardage in this Fearless Fibers yarn was very generous: 550 yards to 4 ounces. I made a pair of socks for me, booties for my niece, and this hat (with the yarn held doubled only for the hat) and I still have enough left over to make stripes in something. A great bargain!

I’m trying to use up some sock yarn scraps so you’ll be seeing a few more hats here in coming posts. Perhaps also interspersed with progress on the Apres Surf Hoodie. Sleeves are almost finished.

I went to the movies yesterday. Between getting there early (the folks I went with had us get there 30 minutes early so we’d get good seats; apparently this one was popular) and the 20-25 minutes of previews, the little hat I had cast on in the morning looked like this once the movie started:

Had there been advertisements before the previews, too, I’d probably have hit the crown decreases before the show even started. Why, if a movie is scheduled to start at 8, doesn’t it start at 8? If I wanted to see advertisements and previews, I would get there at 7:30. But it turned into good knitting time for me, and, mercifully, there were only previews to listen to before the show.

The Apres Surf Hoodie sleeves are nearing the caps.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I was recently on a mission to make some green hats for a family member who requested a hat. She asked for just the one, but I wanted to be sure she had variety so I made four. I finished the last two this week.

First, the special one she had requested, just like the one I made with a red base for our niece earlier this year. This was a style I swore I’d not make again, simply because carrying along the non-stretchy Squiggle is so hard on my hands. But I can’t deny a family member’s special request, so here is the normal hat side:

And the squiggly side:

It doesn’t look too bad on my head although I feel watch caps don’t flatter me:

Pattern: own
Yarn: 1 skein Wolle Roedel Universal Superwash, 100% merino wool, color 849 + 1 skein Crystal Palace Yarns Squiggle, 50% nylon, 50% polyester, color 9291
Needles: size 5
Size: Adult
Started 6/9 and finished 6/19/2008

Since I figured this might be itchy regardless of which side is on the inside, I made an olive green chemo cap out of Berroco Chinchilla, a yarn that’s highly recommended for this type of project. This week I made a second one, slightly smaller and in light sage green:

Pattern: Knit Chemo Cap and Scarf by Berroco, Inc.
Yarn: nearly 1 skein Berroco Chinchilla, 100% rayon, color 5571 (Note: the pattern states 2 skeins, but you need only 1 for the hat. The other skein is for the scarf in the pattern.)
Needles: size 9
Size: about 18″ around and 7.5″ tall
Started 6/18 and finished 6/20/2008

I sent the package off to the recipient on Saturday. Here is a group shot of what she got:

Since my post about the Swirl Cap, my smaller-headed co-worker (uh, a smaller head than mine, I mean) tried it on and it actually stays on her head and fits like a skullcap. On my head it pops right back off again.  I hope the recipient has a smaller head than mine.

I must have been in a bit of a hat groove because I picked up some leftover sock yarn and made a baby hat in what to me looks like camouflage, really “rebel baby” colors.

Pattern: own
Yarn: Regia Stretch Color; 70% wool, 23% nylon, 7% polyester; color 88 (this was leftovers, so probably about half a skein total)
Needles: size 3, working with two strands held together
Size: infant
Started 6/20 and finished 6/21/2008

Why rebel baby? Someone I know gave me that phrase. One time I made some black-based booties and my mom said I was nuts, that no one would want colors like that for a baby, but I had a taker nearly immediately. She had bought a black onesie and wanted booties to go with it for a friend whose baby had a rebel baby wardrobe, no pastels to be seen.

And now? Now I have nothing to knit for tomorrow, so off I go on a stash dive. Wish me luck.

Well, what did you expect? The Squiggle in a green variegated finally arrived and I found a skein of dark green superwash in the stash, so I cast on for another hat for B, who needs some hats. The shade of green is yet another variable (besides head circumference and general style preference as I have mentioned in previous posts), so I thought putting a darker green in the box I will send to her soon was a good idea. Here it is after bus knitting yesterday:

She requested a Squiggle hat, having really liked the red-based one I made for my niece a few months ago, so ordering the yarn was not breaking my current “knit from your stash as much as possible” rule. It is a loose rule… I bought a single skein of pink Kid Merino yesterday (hey, it was on sale) for another frothy scarf with holes.

I found green Fixation, another yarn that’s recommended for chemo caps, in the stash and made an interior-of-an-avocado-colored Swirl Cap:

Pattern: Swirl Cap by Norah Gaughan, published in Vogue Knitting on the Go: Caps & Hats
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Fixation, 98.3% cotton, 1.7% elastic, color 5606
Needles: size 5
Size: small
Started June 5 and finished June 8, 2008

Pattern modifications: I left off the i-cord top, simply drawing the tail through the remaining 10 stitches at the end of the knit 2 together round. Also, there is one typo in the pattern: at the end of the “Rnd 43″ instructions, it should be “rnds 44-55,” not “rnds 44-50.”  

The Fixation causes the length to draw in considerably, so this hat is only about 6″ tall, much shorter than I usually make them. The circumference is very flexible and can stretch and narrow to any adult size. My idea is to send a box of 3 or 4 hats in various sizes to the recipient so she can pick what works for her. Her head is smaller than mine, and without hair, she may need a hat this small. Or perhaps she prefers not to cover her ears and this will fit the bill.

I don’t know whether hat #1 fits because I was given the wrong address and the package came back. I have the right address now but I’m going to hold this package another week to give myself time to make two more hats before I send it on its way again.

I also did a little something else today:

“Hey, remember me?”