MAIL CALL!

This year on my birthday, I received a nice birthday card and gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe from my special friend Ragged. It took me several trips to the Loopy Ewe website to determine what I wanted to spend my gift certificate on. I finally decided on the Toe-Up Socks pattern by Anne Berk from Shibuiknits and a skein of fingering weight merino wool yarn in Antique Jeans colorway from Claudia Hand Painted Yarns. Once the decision was made I had the terrible wait for the mail to come. I found the package this afternoon on my doorstep. I am so excited! Friday I had the itch to knit so bad that on my lunch break from work I visited our local Hobby Lobby store. They had some Bernat Alpaca Natural Blends on sale. I bought a few skeins with a project in mind and snuck them into the house without my hubby knowing. I've sat all morning purusing Ravelry trying to decide what to knit next. Like I said....I had something planned for those two skeins of Bernat I bought, but it's all so overwhelming...I start projects and never finish them. I buy more yarn and patterns and never use them. I do finish a few things here and there. But I want to move on to more complicated stuff. I feel like if I can't finish what's on my needles now, how am I going to knit something more complicated? The choices of what to knit with what yarn is so overwhelming, I find myself just looking at all the possiblilities rather than actually knitting. Ragged is so talented with her hobby. She always has something on the needles and usually finishes her projects and has some of the prettiest knitted projects I've seen. She's so good at it. I'm jealous. So what! If it weren't for her I wouldn't even be getting this excited over a package with a skein of yarn coming in the mail...I love it!!!

Somethin' Squared

I can't believe I finished another project! My knit mojo is back. I am already looking forward to beginning another project. I have a few projects that need to be finished, but I will get to them... someday.

I wanted to knit my dad another hat. The one I knitted for him two year's ago(?) has become almost felted from the wear in the weather (he farms). I thought he could use an alternate. I decided to use Ann Budd's Book of Patterns to begin the hat and I used a hemmed edge. I wanted to try something new. It was a little difficult to do. I don't think I matched up the stitches quite right. When I decided to do the decreases, I went surfing for information because I wasn't entirely sure how to do it. I found Booklyn Tweed's Turn a Square hat pattern. (I love his stuff!)

I liked the way the yarn's colorway made a camouflage pattern and I love the way the decreases produced the striped look. I think I could have began the decreases a little earlier, but I was so afraid of knitting the hat too small. Overall I am pleased with the way it turned out. Somethin' different. Thanks Brooklyn!

Needle: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Yarn: Elizabeth Austen Andes, 165.0 yards in stash, 0.5 skeins = 82.5 yards (75.4m)
Purchased from: Knit Witts Yarn Shoppe in Evansville, Indiana

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here's to a new year of promises and more knitting!

Knit on!