Thorpe V 2.0

I decided since I was snow bound this weekend I wanted an instant gratification project. You know, for sanity's sake and all. I wanted a hat, and I had some yummy purple Malabrigo to use so I spent late Friday evening browsing through hat patterns trying to settle on one. I almost made an Amanda hat. And I was tempted by the Star Crossed Beret but I didn't have the right needles for it. I kind of wanted a Koolhaas but that totally doesn't seem like an instant gratification project at all. After all that I just settled on making myself a Thrope. I wanted a warm hat (my Odessa doesn't cover my ears and my Divine hat is kind of drafty) and I wanted something that I knew I could finish fast enough to wear while the snow was still around and Thrope just totally fit the bill. I started it late yesterday morning and finished the second ear flap late last night (I would've had it done by 7ish but we had plans for dinner at a friend's place). I did the trim and braids this morning just to finish it off.

My dear friend Chris modeling my hat for me.

The colors are a bit twee and more suitable for a 12 year old girl, but I don't really care. It's adorable and warm and that makes me happy.

I love the purple. The striping is subtle but interesting.

You can see the spot where I joined the new yarn in garter stitch and doubled it a bit is a hot mess. I made the large size since the yarn I used was thinner than what was called for in the pattern. That worked out nicely. It's pretty much the perfect size and my ears are no longer cold.

General consensus is that it needs a ball on top. Maybe I'll get around to adding one to it this week just to finish the look.

Finally finished a project!

Alright, I finally finished a project despite my winter blahs. I worked on the Thorpe yesterday afternoon so I could finally give it to my friend Mike after promising him an ear flap hat, oh, say 3 months ago? I was worried as I was making that it was going to be way too big. And the problem with knitting top down is you can't try the hat on as you go if you're using 16" circs.

It is a very easy and quick knit. I got a little confused towards the end when switching from working in a circle to going back and forth but I just worked through the pattern and it turned out ok. It took most of a ball of Knit Pick's Wool of the Andes bulky weight.

And of course there are pictures.





It was a wee bit too big on me so I was worried at first.



But no worries. It fits Mike just fine!



My only problem is now Kevin wants an earflap hat. He was totes jealous of Mike's hat. Arg!

Marram round 2, complete!

I started Kev's Marram Friday afternoon (we got out early thanks to the snow) and finished it Sunday evening. Pretty much all I did this weekend was knit and bake cookies non-stop. No mistakes this time around. It's the right size. No problems at all! No pictures yet since I haven't been able to get him out in the sunlight to take a quick picture.

But since that one knit up so quick, I decided to start another one last night and it's going by just as quickly. The ribbing and first 2 repeats of the pattern are done. It's fun and easy to do and the finished hat just looks so dang clever and more difficult than it really is. This one will be purple/gray (the first was gray/gray).

The cookiepalooza that I had all weekend long was fun. I did two batch of peanut butter, one sugar, one chocolate chip and one chocolate christmas tree peppermint batch. Oh, and one batch of lemony snickets last night after replenishing my butter supply. I think my urge to bake has been satisfied and all of the cookies were gone before lunch after bringing them into work. I work with a bunch of pigs. :-p

Manda's scarf is the last holiday knit I have left to do. Fortunately I've got a grace period on it and will probably use it as my Christmas knitting when I go home to see the family.

Hope y'all have a fantastic holiday!

FO Update

A few weeks ago I blogged about knitting Odessa. I finished it not long after that but did not get around to posting any pictures. Well, here is the finished result.

I didn't use beads because I didn't have beads and was too poor to buy them. Next time I make it I think I will do the beads, just to add a nice girly touch.

It's made out of the same yarn as the Evangeline's down below. Berroco Alpaca something or another. Apparently I had a ton of this stuff. I've made a purse, fingerless gloves and 2 hats with it. (Oddly enough, the other hat I made was the Divine Hat by Rheatheylia which I believe is the crocheted version of the Odessa.)

I screwed up my stitch count on the top as I was closing it up so it's a little jacked up but it's hardly noticeable and I'm rarely around people that are taller than me anyway. I think I've yet to complete a knitting project that doesn't have some sort of mistake in it. I just muddle through and keep going, I hate ripping back.

Speaking of mistakes, I'm still working on those damn socks. I did my heel flap but I kept losing count of my rows and every time I tried to count them I wound up getting different numbers. I think it wound up being a little too long but once again, I just muddled through and kept going. I probably picked up more stitches than necessary when turning the heel and the gusset decreases are slow going. I've realized it's going to take me a few weeks to finish both socks so to keep myself from going crazy I've started knitting the Sideways Grande Cloche from Boutique Knits to keep myself sane and to actually finish something in a reasonable amount of time. I'm a little nervous about it, it's my first hat worked sideways. I'm using the lovely Elegance Aegean from Knit Picks in one of my previous posts. It's going to look awesome with my new red hair. (I'm pretty sure I can only wear green hats now but that's ok because all of my hats are green!)

I plan on knocking this badboy out by this weekend so I'll have another FO to post. Now I just need to update my project page on ravelry. I'm way too unorganized to keep up with that.

Noro spiral one-skein hat

I've got 3 balls of Noro Silk Garden Chunky. I have no idea what to do with 3 balls of Noro Silk Garden Chunky. It's not a lot of yarn to be sure. I decided to try making this hat (ravelry link). So far it's given me nothing but fits. The pattern isn't hard. I know it isn't. Logically this should be a piece of cake. So why isn't it?

I'm impatient. I hate ripping things out and starting over. Had to rip out my first go around because my holes were stacking on top of one another instead of in a spiral. On my second attempt currently. I did my ribbing and then jumped straight into the eyelet pattern instead of knitting a row first. Doesn't seem like a big deal so I keep going. Did an eyelet row, and then promptly did another one, forgetting to knit the second row. GDI! Do I keep going? Rip it back again? I decide to keep going and see what happens...what happens is now I have two holes next to one another but by my 3rd eyelet round I see my spiral finally taking shape. Now I'm wondering if I can get away with that first (ok, second) mistake and keep going at this point. I hate frogging stuff. Patience is not my greatest virtue at all. (god, how am I EVER going to handle knitting lace?!)

Another observation I've had: I fucking hate knitting hats on my denise interchangeables! Too much needle, not enough cord on the 16 inch so it's a fight to do every single stitch in a hat. Maybe I'm using the wrong cord? I'll come back to this issue later...I totally think maybe I'm doing this wrong.

And another thing...my hat isn't making pretty spirals of color like all of the others. Right now it looks like cat vomit. Nobody wants to wear cat vomit on their head, no matter how brightly colored it is.

I'm about ready to scrap the hat and make something else...but what else can you do with 3 balls of Noro? Three very small balls!