Sweet as can bee...

I know this was supposed to be the weekend that I would take pictures of all the hats I've recently been working on, but that didn't happen.  They're pretty much finished, but I still have to trim some of them.  The hats are still on schedule to be delivered when they're supposed to be, but this post isn't going to include them.  I've got other things to do.  😉

Today we are celebrating youngest son's 23rd birthday.  All three sons should make it for lunch today and then some games - and I'm just so excited!

I do have another finished project to show, though.  I had crocheted this Sweet As Can Bee Blanket (adult sized) without telling anyone, and didn't want to share about it here because it was meant as a gift:

I recently mailed it off to my sister who is undergoing chemotherapy, and I got word this week that she received it - so I can now post a picture of it. 

The back story on the yarn...  A couple of years ago I ordered a lot of this yarn thinking it was a nice shade of blue.  When I received it, I did think it was pretty, but my was it blue!  I used little bits of it here and there, but somehow I just never felt quite confident about using it in a large project.   So it waited patiently for its purpose to be discovered.

When I looked at it more recently I suddenly realized that it would be a perfect color for a blanket for my sister.  I had seen a picture of her in a similarly colored sweater and she looked stunning, so I imagined she'd look equally good cozied up in a blanket of nearly the same color.  I had also recently come across this blanket pattern, and I thought it was a perfect design.  And...  I was pretty confident I had just enough yarn to finish an adult sized blanket made from the pattern.  But it started to look like a race of Yarn Chicken as I got to the border, so I had to think fast.  By adding that one row of slightly darker blue in the edging, I had just enough.  Success! I thought.  I washed it and mailed it off.  

And you know what?  After she received it, one of the first things she said was that she loved the color.  😊  

The yarn,  Deborah Norville Everyday, is one of my favorites for washability and softness.  It's also non-pilling.  All great characteristics for a yarny blanket, in my opinion.  The colorway here is Cornflower.  The perfect name for the perfect color for a pretty lady with pretty blue eyes.  And the stitch pattern...  it's as sweet as can bee!  

~~~~~

They made it!   Picture added Sunday night - after post was published.

To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

The final stretch...

Super short and sweet this week -  this is the last of the teaser pictures.    

Finishing up some knitting (seriously loving these self-striping yarns for knitting hats):

 The above is Vanna's Choice Tapestry yarn in the colorway, Brazil

 This red/gray striped yarn is Deborah Norville Everyday yarn in the colorway, Lava

crocheting:

My favorite hat pattern:  Stepping Texture Hat

and embellishing hats & scarves:

Finally got the hang of my Clover Pom Pom Maker 

Extra points if you can tell me what's wrong with the button above

By next weekend, the plan is to have these hats and some scarves all finished and put into the donation box - which is the first stop on their way to their final homes.

And I'm looking forward to tallying up the yarn stash I've used.  I may have finally made up for buying all that pretty colorful thread over a month ago.  😉

To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

More hats...

Not a lot going on this week except having some plumbing repaired.   The good news on that front is that every single faucet in the house has now been replaced (and a couple have been replaced for the second time).  Counting the repeats, that's 9 faucets!  Eleven, if I count the two outside faucets.   That is over the course of 20 years, though, so it's not as bad as it first sounds.

A not-very-busy-week meant I got to spend a fair amount of time knitting and crocheting hats.   They are accumulating for the hat drive coming up in less than a month.

I do love the ease of the Benefaction Hat pattern.  I still enjoy making it:

And after digging through my stash for some self-striping yarn I think I'm going to enjoy making even more.  The following is Deborah Norville Everyday yarn in the colorway Red Rocks:

I am of course complicating things by removing that beige-y pink color (you can barely see it up there in the wound-up ball).

I'm looking forward to trying out a few more self-striping yarns I just happened to have single skeins of.



And I do still love a crocheted hat.  I made another Stepping Textures hat in a gold yarn:

When I get them all done (some will need pom poms) I'll try to create a collage of all the hats.  For now, some teaser pictures will suffice.

To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

Doilies and hats...

I missed my YOP buddies last weekend, but we were enjoying a bit of traveling.  First on the docket was taking our middle son some furniture.  It was so good to see him (and a little kitten he had recently adopted 😊).  When we considered that once we got to his place, we were nearly half-way to friends in Michigan, we made plans to visit them, too.  It was a fun, if rainy, weekend and we caught up with each other, laughed 'till we couldn't catch our breath, and went to bed a lot earlier than we used to.  Somehow we'd all gotten older in the years since we last saw each other...

Because our friends had recently moved into a new house, it occurred to me that some doilies might make a nice little housewarming gift for my girlfriend.  I decided to give her the autumn colored Summer Splendor I made a few weeks ago, and I got busy making two more. 

I made another Winter's Breath Doily, this time in a gray color of Artiste thread called Coin:

I know it pretty much looks white in a photograph, but it's actually a nice shade of gray.

And I had been admiring this small doily called Octoberfest, but I knew I wanted to make it in a red color because I think it looks kind of Christmas-y:

The outer edge looks darker than the center, but it's all the same color (called Jam) of Artiste thread.

The doilies were a hit, and I can't believe I haven't tired of making them.  So stay tuned!

~~~~~

Doilies may have to get in line, though because wanting to make some hats for a hat/scarf drive coming up in early October, I'm finally getting a little more focused on that.  This year, I'm adding knitted hats to my crocheted ones.

First, a crocheted one - called Stepping Texture:

This is an easy pattern that can be made to fit any size head and with any size yarn as long as one starts the body with a stitch count that is a multiple of 5.  I made several of these last year and I'm happy to say it's a pretty enjoyable pattern. 

As far as knitting goes...  while I'm eyeing some colorwork patterns, at the moment I'm still practicing knitting in the round by making simple stockinette-stitched hats, but playing around with different yarns:

I love the Premier Sweet Roll yarn these are knitted in (colorway is Black Pepper Swirl).  I find it very easy to work with.

While I love the Sweet Roll yarn, I did begin to get tired of gray, so I went digging for something brighter.  This lone skein of Willow Wash  yarn in the colorway, Cherry Heather fit the bill:

Pom poms will be added to some of my hats later.  Or not.  I'll figure that out after I've made more and if I decide to crown any with poms, I will do it assembly line style.

And that's all from me this week.  To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

I knit a hat!

Remembering this past week that I wanted to complete a knitted project for an August KAL (in the Red Heart Lovers' group on Ravelry,) I put down my tiny crochet hook and thread and set myself to knitting a hat.  In this C/KAL we were to challenge ourselves to do something that was new to us.

Well...  I'd never knit a hat (so that was new), and since I'd never knit in the round before, and I'd never used DPNs, I looked for a video to walk me through these things.

I found the Benefaction Hat (from Knit Picks):

I was actually surprised at how easy it was to knit on 16-inch, size 6 circular needles.  And then I got to the DPNs at the top.  My yarn (Red Heart Soft) was very splitty, so that was problem #1 when trying to decrease, and then my stitches started slipping off my DPNs.   Ugh. 

It became  a royal mess, but somehow I pulled it all together, and closed her up and I can at least say I finally knit a hat.

Now...  If the front was all there was, I'd be happy enough. I could cover the messy crown with a pom pom.  

Problem #2, though, is something I can't fix or disguise.  I simply can't stand the jogs that my color joins created, and I don't know what happened with the top stripe.  I tried to use a jogless joining technique there, but clearly I didn't understand something.  I know y'all will be encouraging, but I'm disappointed with the back:

That said, I'm super pleased that I finished it, and I immediately jumped into making another one:

I'm using a self-striping yarn (which is giving me really wide bands of different shades of gray so color jogs are not an issue), and most importantly, the yarn doesn't split!  This second yarn is Premier Sweet Roll yarn in the colorway Black Pepper Swirl.

This will be a toasty hat!  And Ooh, how I wish I had other colors of this yarn, but I will not go shopping for more.  I can content myself making more gray striped hats until I tire of the pattern.  Or combine colors on my own to make large bands if that's what really floats my boat.

The truly important thing for me to remember here is...  I knit a hat!!!  

~~~~~

Other things I worked on this week included a teeny doily, which is #10 in the book 99 Little Doilies:  

It's about 4 inches across.  And it's super simple, except for some twisted stitches (which didn't twist)  - in Round 6, I believe.  Not much to say about this one. 

I also started Doily #11 in the same book:

It just makes me too sad to refer to all these doilies as #10, #11... so I'm going to try to give them my own names (if they're worthy).  This one I'm calling Pineapple Square doily.   You can't see them yet, but there will (hopefully) be a pineapple on each straight side of this square doily.   I plan for this one (and maybe some others) to be finished next time I make a YOP post.

And more hats.  'Tis the month to make hats.  Knit hats, crochet hats.  I want to make hats.

And that's all she wrote!  To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.