Where's My Hat?

I love my mother. She raised 5 children, the youngest of us is 16, and she's still at it. She recently became the foster mom of a 7-month old girl - the cutest little baby I've seen in a bit. I'm not sure if I'll get in trouble for showing her picture or saying her real name, so I'll call her Pretty.

Last Saturday Mom shows up with little Pretty and shows me that she didn't have a hat for Pretty, so she wanted to know if there was a hat in the room for her. Turns out that Pretty's head was bigger than the hats we had on hand. Not that she has a big head, you understand, it's just that we're making hats for preemies and Pretty isn't a preemie.

Today is Friday, and my mom has called me every day with one question - "Where's my hat?" Granted, I can whip up a hat, but sizing a hat without measurements is a guessing game. So yesterday, I pulled out my Bebe Lang, my size 2 double points and whipped up this Cupcake Hat pattern that I found at The Naked Sheep website:

After looking at it, I realized that working on the preemie project has distorted my sense of size and that this hat was going to be too small for Pretty. So, today I whipped up this hat using Caron Simply Soft (white), Red Heart Soft Baby (multi) and size 6 needles:

This hat looks HUGE! Maybe it's just me. Here they are side by side and one of them has to fit her:

The other one will go to charity.

The good news is that my mother will finally call me to say 'good morning' instead of 'where's my hat?'

Happy birthday, Mom! I hope you like Pretty's hat.

Ladies, You're The Best!

The ladies that make up the Soundview Stitchers have been a bunch of busy bees indeed. With a Patons slipper knit-along (KAL), the preemie project going on, and everyone trying to teach everyone else something, the ladies still managed to rack up a bundle of goods for the babies in the NICU.


We aren't the only ones that contributed to this batch of goodies. There was Cathy Bautista and some ladies in a circle called Purls of Hope. Thanks ladies!

Miss Winnie held a pair of booties in her hand so you can see how small (and cute) they are:


We also have a new member of the circle family, Miladys, who made her very first thing - booties. She was a little camera shy so only her cutie pie booties are shown here:


Then there are the intrepid few that didn't let the slipper KAL frighten them off.

There's Winnie who is happy as pie about her project. You should see the smile behind that pretty in pink slipper! Good job Winnie!


And there's Carmen R. who is whipping right along with her slipper. I think she's still working on her first slipper, but she's moving right along and making serious progress. Unlike yours truly (that would be me) who dumped the slipper at the first opportunity. Carmen, you're a trooper!


And the winner is - Carol! She actually FINISHED a slipper! Congratulations! It really is a nice looking slipper, good color and proportion. With all that effort, I think she should get a reward.

Next week - the Madeleines are on me!

Oh My Knees!

Today I know that I am getting old. I felt it in my knees at Duane Reade. I went to the store to buy toothpaste which is downstairs, but I took one look at the stairs:

and decided it was just too much effort to walk down two flights for toothpaste. So I decided I'd look for toothpaste substitute (yeah right, what substitutes for toothpaste?) on the main floor. What I found was this:

Right next to the tarter control candies lining the shelves. I left the store empty handed.

Anyway, I got home in time to knit for a couple of hours and decided I wasn't seeing the nupps (I'm told it's pronounced 'noops') on my green scarf as well as I'd like,

so I pulled out some Misti Aplaca laceweight and started the scarf in off white:

and there are nupps all over the place! They are so cute! A pain in the neck, but cute as the dickens.

Since Marina's scarf is done, I'm back to knitting my holiday gifts -yay!

OK, back to the yarn mines. I've got a list of things to do that's as long as my arm.

Happy knitting to you.

Day Two

This is how far I got and I'm well into the pattern as you can see:


There's about 43" of scarf and I plan to end the scarf at 60". The scarf might be off the needles tonight, then a day to soak, block and dry, then it's back to working on my holiday gifts (Yay!)

Meanwhile, the urge to spin is driving me to distraction.

Marina's Scarf

Marina J. is one of the nicest people I know, so when she asked me to make her a scarf I said yes without hesitation. Part of her request was that I make it black to match her coat (done), that it be wider and longer than the scarf she wants replaced (check), and that it have some silver carry along (sorry!). Two wishes out of three - not bad. I hope.

With black yarn, patterns are kind of hard to see, and worse when you're trying to take a picture of it. So, I searched for the perfect pattern and dug into my stash for the only black yarn I had, Yarn Treehouse Luster Alpaca. I have two skeins - and maybe more which I can't immediately get my hands on.

Today was day one of knitting:


I got about two feet of knitting done. It's the feather and fan pattern - a little bit of lace, a little bit of solid:



I just hope she likes it. I've been biting back my urge to work on anything else because I'd like her to have it by Tuesday, and before the warm weather sets in.

In the meantime, look what came in the mail for me! From Sarah's Yarns, 4 skeins of the softest bamboo in the world, and two skeins of 2-ply turquoise cashmere. The whole kit and kaboodle will be knit up for my friend Aylin O. who is in a family way and expecting a bundle of baby boy joy!

I also got in the mail last week the Knitting Daily TV DVDs which we in the knitting circle tried to watch today, but we talk too much and didn't watch the TV unless someone saw something they liked or had never seen before, and there was lots of that. Everyone was yelling for me to watch when there was a spinning wheel segment since I'm the only one in the circle (so far) that spins.

There's a lot I can learn from those DVDs, especially the I-cord bind off. Love the show, the yarns, and the style/format of the show. I can't wait for season two.

That's it for today.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I Love To Knit

There is never enough time to knit as much as I want to - ever. My serious knitting time starts during knitting circle/class on Saturday mornings. It's usually the place where I decide what to knit next, without forgetting to keep my obligation to knitting the project du jour for the class.

This month is the preemie project, and to that end, I finished this project:



Of course the hat is on the sticks, but I got sidetracked making Mary's beret (and gloves):


She loved it and sent me the prettiest thank you card in the world! She really didn't have to because the gift was my way of thanking her for supporting me as a friend all these years and for being so encouraging ever since I've known her. Thanks for everything Mary!

After the beret, I thought I'd use my newly purchased Knit Picks yarn (Shadow, in Juniper), the softest yarn I've touched in a long time. It was my thought to make a tam and scarf:


But this yarn wasn't suitable for the pattern, so I went to this pattern instead:


It's the Estonian Lace Scarf by Nancy Bush. It's time consuming, I've been knitting for hours and I'm only this far, but the payoff is going to be huge because it's my first holiday gift for 2009. Let's see how this goes.

After all of this, there's going to be a bunch of socks in my future. Small, portable, and offering immediate gratification.

All of this knitting and I only managed to make ONE skein of yarn disappear! What's up with that?

Ahhh ... Done!

I was looking for a beret pattern for my friend Mary made of fingering weight yarn and voila, Springtime in Philadelphia (that's the name of the pattern) from Zeitgeist Yarns.



Mind you, I ripped this hat back so many times I was expecting the yarn to be thick, thin and maybe mohair, but it retained it's wooliness. This is from stash purchased at least 3 years ago on ebay, and it's a little suspect.

It says 100% wool (but not what type), and for washing instructions it says, 'Hand wash in lurk warm water ...'




It's Jojoland 100% wool (garnet), 220 yards, size US #3 and #2 needles, and after several false starts I ended up with this little lovely:





It's blocking on one of my dinner plates right now, and you can't see the pattern very well, but trust me, it's really cute. (Little Miss Kitty did her own inspection.)



My only concern is that the bind off should have been on size 3 instead of size 2 because it seems a little tight. I just hope it fits Miss Mary.

After the hat is dry, I'll find the gloves I made to go with this hat and snap a picture of it all before handing it off.

I'm off to plan for a black scarf for another friend, but that's on hold while I hunt for some silver thread to carry along with the black yarn I unloading - I mean destashing.

Next, I'm casting on for a holiday gift, the first of many gifts I plan to have ready for Christmas 2009.