Monday, September 26, 2011

I'm all ears.


A few weeks before a friend of mine was due to have her baby on 4th of July weekend, I decided to knit her two little hats. She had shared pictures of baby hats with oversized animal ears on Facebook and I felt I could grant her wish. I quickly searched ravelry for patterns to make a mouse and a bunny hat and found this and this. I purchased superwash wool in the appropriate colors and began what I thought to be a simple little project.

I just finished yesterday, 3 months later. What the heck took me so long??


Making the hats was the easy part. They are small and quickly flew off my size 9 needles. I used the picoted cast on for one, which was fun, but decided to mix it up and add a seed stitch border to the white hat. Both came out nice.

My big hang up really, was on the ears. The pattern for the rabbit ears was clear and concise, telling me exactly what to do, but (typical) I refused to listen! I experiemented with bigger ears, more tapered ears, tried different ways of seeming the ears. I think I made 6 rabbit ears total... and I am pretty darn sure that rabbits only have 2!

In the end, I ended up making the rabbit ears exactly as the pattern describes. The same size, shape, and method. No imporvisations neccessary. duh. How can 376 ravelers be wrong? Its funny how that happens.

The mouse ears were less complicated. I let the pattern (free, here) do all the work.


In the end they are a little lopsided, one rabbit ear is (somehow) bigger than the other, and some of the pink yarn shows through the white... but who cares? I had to let my perfectionism go on this one. It's going to be worn by a baby, who is going to steal the attention away from my knitting for sure. No one is going to say 'that seam is off', or 'that mouse ear is slightly more round'. No, they are going to be speechless when they see the adorable baby Matilda wearing my hats.



Wednesday, September 07, 2011

heart vermont.


This heartfelt post from Savory Knitting came to my attention a few days too late to purchase a pattern, but not too late to help out.

Savory Knitting has shared an emotional, first-hand account of the devastation in Vermont from recent hurricane Irene, as well as ways to help out with the recovery. I was fortunate to have only experienced a little rain and wind during the storm, but not everyone had it this easy, and many folks in Vermont lost a lot or are still cleaning up.

Please note that Green Mountain Spinnery in VT is donating proceeds from their shop between September 3 to September 11, 2011 to the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund. They are located in the heart of this lovely state ...AND their yarns are amazing! I am thrilled to add more of their fiber to my stash as well as help out my neighbors.

You can shop their beautiful yarns here: http://www.spinnery.com/shop/

early autumn.

Hi!

I didn't mean to go so long without posting. Please don't mistakenly think I was 'On Vacation' (as my last post suggested) that whole time. I glanced at my blog occasionally and thought how nice that concept was though, so I guess that through my blog I was able to savor that sweet, summery week off I had back in early August a little bit longer.

I've been working on a flurry of knitting projects these last few weeks and getting excited as the weather cools and it starts feeling more and more like fall. I have nothing finished to show you though, the only thing I have completed in the last month was this, which I highly recommend.


it. was. amazing.

happy fall everyone!