Two Finishes

I think this took me about a year, but I finally finished my Spindrift Shawl by Helen Stewart. I have no idea why it took me so long. It's a simple and elegant pattern.

Here it is, unblocked. I'm sure that lace will really open up after a good soak. 

The yarn is a speckled fingering weight from KnitCircus. I seem to have lost track of the ballband. And I had barely enough yarn to finish the picot bind-off!

I also finished this Fair Isle hat of my own design. It came out huge, definitely a man's hat! I'm going to make some changes, downsize it and write it up as a pattern, I think.

It feels good to have accomplished a few things in the past week and a half since my surgery. I'm going to have to work quite a bit in the next weeks. Most of it will be on my own schedule, which makes it feel less onerous.

I hope most of you are having summer. It is so cold and rainy here that I am wearing jeans and a wool sweater!

What I've Learned in the Past Week

1. It is amazing how much more knitting I can get done when I'm not working full time! (See sweater below.)

Flowers from my sweet Mom.

2. Any surgery than involves anesthesia is exhausting.

3. You can't hurry healing. In fact, it's the opposite: You have to slow down to heal. This is a challenge for some of us.

This is the body of a cardigan. More in future posts.

4. Knitting is the absolute best thing to do when you're recuperating, especially mindless stockinette.

Another hat in my effort to stash-bust.

5. You should not check your email when you are sick leave. You just end up working for free. Ask me how I know!

More Hats

 I had enough yarn left over from my last Fair Isle hat to make a second one. I designed the pattern for this one:

I'm not sure I like it better than the original. You can compare them below. I'd love to hear your thoughts -- yes, constructive criticism is welcome. Mine has more detail, but I think these colors worked better in a simpler design.

And I finished After the Fall. It's a good beach-type read about a group of people on a private plane that crashes.]I think it's out in paperback, and it would be a good vacation novel.

I hope your week is going smoothly. Snow is falling here as I type, with 5 to 7 inches expected. The snow will probably end by 1 a.m., so it's unlikely I'll get a snow day tomorrow. That's probably for the best. I have a lot of work to do before the end of the school year.

Introducing the Kitty Hat

 I always swore I had no interest in designing my own knitting patterns, but the urge seems to be creeping up on me. Meet the Kitty Hat:

What do you think? Can you tell that the pink faces are supposed to be cat faces? I think they look more like mouse faces, but that fits the cat theme, too, I think.

The hat is knit from Berroco Vintage, which was left over from The Favourite Things Cowl and the patterns are from a variety of sources, but mostly Mary Jane Muckelstone's books. The cat is from her 150 Scandinavian Motifs book.

The hardest part was figuring out the right number of stitches to cast on and what size needles to use. The hat is wearable but the slouchy top is not exactly right, so I'm working on a second hat, but this one features sheep. I am hoping to come up with at least one hat design that I can release as a free pattern this summer.

I made up this hat as I went along, which was even more fun that watching self-patterning sock yarn play out. This is the thing about knitting; it has endless, fascinating variations!