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  • I’ve Finally Found My Head!

    cantaloupe hat completed and displayed on mannequin head
    cantaloupe hat completed and displayed on mannequin head

    Project Name: Cantaloupe Hat
    Source: Lifestyle Top Down Hats, No Swatch Needed, by Charisa Martin-Cairn
    Yarn Used: Noro Kureyon
    Needle Size: 4!
    Date Started: September 5, 2008
    Date Completed: September 17, 2008

    Notes: This experiment with Charisa’s pattern yielded something on the continuum between Rastafarian and circus clown. Guess which end of the spectrum I think it’s closest to? Heh. Definitely the hat I’m wearing when my primary aim in life is to embarrass my children. Yes, this will do the job nicely, thankyouverymuch. That and I also like to wear weird hats on very stressful days in the office. At least they allow people to question my sanity for a bit instead of their own. But, I kinda like it! Guess I’m weird, too.

    Hat Model Naming Help Needed!

    Meet my new hat model, Hattie. For lack of a better name, let’s call her that for now. I think she’s a cousin of the models on Charisa’s site, because I broke down finally and asked her which ones she bought. She kindly pointed me to a seller on eBay who had just the thing. She’s actual plastic, rather than styrofoam, which is a good thing since I have cats.

    But ok, she needs a real name! Help me think of something befitting of her usual role, modeling hats of all sorts from the elegant felted ones I make to the totally weird ones I somehow come out with but love them just as much. Oh wow. I just thought of a doozie. But I’ll keep quiet and see if one of you comes up with it, too. Leave me your thoughts in the comments, k?

    Ciao for now,

    The Crazy Hat Lady

  • Hat Progress and Still More New Stuff

    cantaloupe hat almost done except brim
    cantaloupe hat almost done except brim

    It’s been a few days so I thought I’d update you on the hat I’m making. I think it’s almost done! It’s wider at the top than the bottom, and I’m making it slightly longer than I normally would so that it can have room to be a bit billowy. I’ve been trying on as I go and I’m just about ready to knit the brim. I’m sure I’ll get some weird comments about this hat when it’s done, with all the bright colors and stuff. It’s ok, the weirder the better. One of my co-workers once commented that she never knew what I’d show up to work with on my head. This one will probably get her attention too!

    My usual lunch buddy is on vacation for the next two weeks and I was actually feeling a bit anxious about this, but then I happened to discover a knitting group that meets at lunch time every day. I am looking forward to having a group of knitters to eat with. I’ll bring my hat along and do a couple rounds after finishing my sandwich. Should be fun!


    Book Review: Domino Knitting

    I just got the book, Domino Knitting, by Vivian Hoxbro, and I have one thing to say: where, oh WHERE has this book been all my life? I’ve read other mitered square tutorials, and what has stopped me cold from just diving into the mayhem is all the finishing. Why did I avoid buying the book all this time, when in fact the answer has been there, for the entire time I’ve been a knitter and even longer than that? I’m having a super-huge “duh” moment here! The concept is that you make blankets (or lots of other things) out of mitered squares that are knit on as you go. No seaming! Wow.

    But even more than that, I’ve been clamoring for a long time for techniques for a no-sew afghan that is knit in strips where you can knit on the strips as you go. I’ve always wanted to do a blanket showing different panels of cables and other stuff, but I didn’t want to mess it up at the end with sloppy seaming. (I’m REALLY bad at seaming!) Well, several of the designs in the book are for pot holders knit in strips as you go. Voila! Again, the answer was there all along, Dorothy… you had the way to get home all along… just click your heels three times and say, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”

    Ok, I’m losing it. Goodnight.

  • Hat Math

    I’m always finding myself explaining to my daughter why she really needs all that math they teach her at school. Well, kid, here’s an example! It seems I have a problem making hats that fit me just right. I’m all about the guessing, and usually they wind up too big or too small. Well, duh. There’s math that can fix this problem. Really.

    hat progress
    hat progress

    My friend Lola came over for lunch today and measured my head while she was here. I’m 22 inches, just like I thought. Now, just so you don’t think I’m all remembering my math from Jr. High and stuff, I had to go look it up. Luckily it was pretty quick work finding a website that talked all about circles. Turns out that to figure out how wide to make my hat circles, it’s a simple division problem:

    22 in. ÷ π = 7

    So if I make the top of my hat have a diameter of 7 inches, that is the size that will fit my head exactly. Not bad, eh? I thought so too. Please let me bask in the glow of my brilliance for a while, eh? Don’t let me down for a day or so at least, by telling me that any 8th grader could do this. K?

    Baby Yours

    When the Yarn Harlot recently made a pair of baby sweaters for the owner of her favorite local yarn store, I must say I fell in love with the “boy” version. Just look at those cables!

    baby yours sweater pattern and yarn
    baby yours sweater pattern and yarn

    And the yarn is such a lovely shade of blue! It’s Nyame, in Socks that Rock mediumweight by Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Love it! I might have to make this one up and dress a doll with it. The yarn is soooooo pretty! Sigh. I definitely am not on the market for another baby. I will queue this one up on Ravelry very soon.

    Gotta run; it’s getting late and Kelley Petkun has the Mason Dixon Knitting ladies on her podcast this week. I am dying to listen to them talk about their new book!

    Ciao for now, knit friends!

    Ciao for now!

  • Cantaloupe Hat?

    top of hat in progress with orange and green colors
    top of hat in progress with orange and green colors

    Sometimes I think you just never know what you’re gonna end up with when you knit with Noro Kureyon yarn. I started my do-over of the top down, no swatch hat, and I’m using a different rainbow-y colorway. Well, wouldn’t you know, the oranges came out first, followed by the greens. Someone in the Noro dyeing department must have some kind of sense of humor, because now I know that I will be forever wearing the Cantaloupe Hat.

    Lucky me.

    In other knitting disaster news, my terminally pissed off 16-year-old grump cat PEED in the middle of my dining room table yesterday. What was in the middle of the dining room table, you ask? A pile of papers that I was dreading going through anyway, and the Ravelry Tote containing the BROWN RIPPLE AFGHAN! AAAARRRRRGH! By some amount of good grace only the bag itself got wet (and a ball of yarn that was in the very bottom soaked up the rest) and NONE of the offense wound up on the blanket itself.

    Before you go on wondering what in the heck I’m doing to my cat, or what might be wrong with her that she would do such a thing, let me say right off that she’s been to the vet LOTS and we can’t find anything medically wrong with her. She’s just mad at me for I don’t know what reason. She is anxiety prone and it is getting worse in her old age. And for the life of me, we’re trying to figure out what is setting her off. And we can’t. We’ve tried pheremone spray and anti anxiety meds. I don’t know if she’s having a territorial squabble with the other cat, or if something in the laundry room where her litterbox has always been is now scaring her. I’m going to have to try another litter pan, but that means putting it out in the open where company can see. My house is a completely open floorplan except for the bedrooms, which the cat is not allowed in because peeing in our beds is definitely a deal breaker for us.

    We’ve had this cat since she was about 6 weeks old. On the very first night, she snuggled up in our bed with us to go to sleep. In the middle of the night we were awakened by a really foul smell, and the sight of our teeny kitten dragging our blankets with all her might so she could cover up the poop she just made. I should have known then that someday the litterbox thing might come back to haunt us.

    Zoe the Cat
    Zoe the Cat
    Sorry for the kitty potty talk! I’m sure Miss Zoe would really love it that I am discussing her personal business with you. But hey. I’m at my wits end here. Cut me some slack, cat.

  • Knitting Day in Bowie–Tropical Storm Edition

    Today we had our monthly gathering at the Borders Books in Bowie. Despite the threat of bad weather from Tropical Storm Hanna, we had a good sized group today, including one newcomer. Welcome, Ann!

    Click on the picture in the gallery to embiggen the photo!

    Lola starts another Starmore
    Ann knits a sleeve for her sweater
    Camera-shy Dina shows off her Lady Eleanor stole
    Marie helps Dina with her knitting
    Rhoda knits a scarf today
    Trish works on the Many Hands, Big Heart afghan

    As for me, I picked back up on the brown ripple afghan today. Marie has kindly offered to help me with my ends next month, so I am inspired to knit on this project once again! Must keep knitting… Ciao for now, and thanks for a great day, everyone!

  • If at First You Don’t Succeed…

    flat top hat, first attempt
    flat top hat, first attempt

    Ok, so on the surface, this hat looks like it should be pretty dang cute. Here’s the thing. I was impatient. It is too small! At least that’s how I’m interpreting the shaping as it sits on my actual head. I should have made the top circle larger than my actual head size so that when I put the hat on it would be more likely to keep its shape. Also if I had made the hat body longer, the top would not have had to come down over my head so much as I wear it. Lastly, I would make the brim lots larger.

    Moral of the story? The hat I’m dreaming of making for myself cannot be done with just a single skein of Noro Kureyon. It was silly of me to even try, as I have two skeins of every color that I bought. Doh.

    So, on to round two. I’ve started again, this time with smaller needles for a firmer fabric, and I’m not going to be in such a hurry to get done or to try to force it all out of one skein. Since this one took a bit less than a week I’m not too worried about the second one. I’ll let you know what happens, good or bad.

    sigh…