A hat for me
This was supposed to be the hat that preventing me from catching my death while working in the lab early last month. Since I was in a big hurry to finish it and was concerned about running out of yarn, I started the decreases prematurely. Here i am modeling it while at work at about 2 in the morning. At the time, I thought it fit.

I decided to pick up the cast-on stitches at the bottom and knit some ribbing until I ran out of yarn. I couldn’t be more pleased with the result.

Pattern: My own
The top is knit with a seeded rib pattern. The bottom band was picked up from the cast-on stitches and is knit with 2×2 rib. This construction made it so the bind-off row was at the bottom, and I was able to use a stretchy bind-off to finish.
Yarn: 50% wool, 50% silk, dyed by me.

I also finished my Knitpicks Emma Jacket, but I am a little disgusted with it (and don’t have any good pictures) so we’ll talk about that later.

Finally, the cutest FO is last

i bought some amigurumi patterns from Ana Paula’s etsy shop and completed a cactus just in time to give away as a housewarming plant (the kind you can’t kill). All of her patterns are cute cute cute. I made this one on no time from scrap acrylic. Highly recommended.

It was fun to watch the color change as I knit, and I kept wondering why i never thought of turning this bright yarn into a hat before. I have never knit on US 15 needles before; they are by far the biggest I have ever used. I rarely use bulky yarn, and I have never used it doubled. Everything about the hat just seemed so big. So i decided to make my embellishment a tiny hat. It is the opposite of the big hat in every way I could think of. It has no color, is fuzzy (knit in mohair), and was done in tiny needles. It has ribbing and decreases just like the big hat.

I had just enough yarn to keep me sweating that I might run out, but I made it. It fits my normal-sized head, but I don’t know how much i will wear it since I am not crazy about the point at the top.

It seems that while I was away, fall has started to sneak its was into the Northern Hemisphere. Don’t get me wrong, it is flat out warm outside in the Bay Area right now, but the last few nights have been a little chilly (The hint of a diurnal temperature variation qualifies as a change of seasons around here). This reminded me of an awesome free pattern by my friend abmatic that i have been meaning to tell you about….
Ta-da! The bulky cabled hat. It uses SUPER bulky yarn and knits up in a jiffy. I bet you could hold together two strands of worsted weight yarn to get the same approximate gauge, but I haven’t tried it.

While you are visiting her page, leave her some encouragement…. she has ony 3 days until her big Ph.D. qualifying exam….. Knock ’em dead!