Hats Hats and More Hats! (Oh, and gloves)

So luckily, my husband did not totally scoff at my new hobby. Instead, he was the first person to ask me to make him something. And totally got me all excited that he wanted something I could make for him!! I know I was all aglow with the prospect. So.. I went about hunting down a pattern that matched what type of hat he was wanting. Came up with this. 'Cept hubby likes dark colors. So I told him to go buy me some alpaca yarn from Michaels on his lunch break. He brought home a slate gray and a plum purple. If I can give him a brand, I suppose he can buy his own yarn. Yay.

I followed the pattern exactly, but the result was just not quite long enough for what hubby was wanting. In fact, it didn't come out looking anything like the pattern. Much shorter... it really didn't floop down to the bottom of the neck hardly.









So then I give it a second try, since I still had yarn left over (did send hubby back for another skein of the purple, though I didn't end up using it in the end). This was my first crack at altering a pattern to match what I wanted.. rather than what the pattern offered. By this point I felt like I understood the way knitting a pattern worked that I felt confident I could alter it to my own needs. This pattern was also pretty easy in that it just had a very gradual decrease through the hat, and I just made the decrease even more gradual than it was originally. And the result was perfect. Hubby has worn it every time its cold outside since I finished it. He loves it. And I'm very happy to see him wearing it!!


So then a friend of ours asks for a hat for a new character he is playing -- he needs a kufi. At first I'm like "of course!" Then I go looking up patterns -- and they are all crochet!! I know how to *knit* not *crochet*. So I tell him it'll be a little while..cuz I will have to learn how to crochet first. Well, turns out crocheting is easy. I think it took me all of a week if that to complete that hat. So there went my first go at crochet - and it came out really well. Looks like I'm on a roll!




Then, over thanksgiving, my dad asks for a hat! I even take him shopping to pick out yarn and colors. He was really simple with that - maroon and white...and acrylic please, so he can have the vibrant maroon color. Works for me. So we buy him the yarn, and I get to work. This hat took me a little longer than it should have, because I kept changing my mind how I wanted it to look. The pattern called for a self-striping yarn for the accent stripes, so that the stripes didn't look too striking against the main color. Of course, I didn't get a self-striping yarn.. and following the pattern exactly made it waaaay too patterned and structured. So I played a bit with the color changes and made it a bit more intesesting, and I'm really happy with the resulting color looks. Unfortunately, I think the hat is just a bit big. It was huge on me, and just a bit big on him. But it will definitely cover his ears that way. Just need to figure out why the final project came out so much larger than the picture/pattern suggested it would. Think it was the acrylic?

Somewhere in this massive hat-making period, I decided to pick up a new pattern for fingerless mitts for myself. The original attempt was just too difficult, and in having learned a good deal about yarn differences in the past few months, realized that the original pattern used such a fine yarn that it wouldn't really be all that warm anyway. So I found a new pattern that would take advantage of some awesomely soft yarn I found at a LYS. My first attempt, following the pattern exactly, ended with a glove that was just a little too small for my hand. This was partially due to the fact that I used just the standard bind-off that I had originally learned, which doesn't allow for any stretch whatsoever (in fact I'd done it too tightly, and it closed it up a little extra). In addition to the fact that it went up far enough on my hand as to end on my fingers.. it didn't allow me to flex my fingers at all. So much for that. I had mom try it on over thanksgiving, though, and it fit her just fine and didn't constrict her fingers at all. Mark that up to a gift for her! I started a second glove to try out some alterations to the pattern to make it work for me. I added an increase row in the hand, and used a different bind-off that added a good deal of stretch. Perfect!! So now I had two gloves - one for mom and one for me. Hehe. Then I realized I was giving mom her gloves for christmas. Which meant I had to hurry up and finish her second glove with about one week till Xmas!! Think that was some of the fastest knitting I've done yet. :) At least they came out well enough and they fit her wonderfully.