1 post tagged “holidays”
I haven't really been knitting that long -- a couple of years -- and while my technique has improved immensely my grasp of reality is shaky as ever. Luckily, I think I'm not alone in this -- it appears that a lot of knitters get all pumped up in the summer months about what they'll be knitting as gifts for the holidays, and then wind up knocking out a series of hats and scarves at the last minute if we're determined. Ah, delusions of grandeur! It's not that I'm not productive, I just wind up re-knitting or I get sidetracked ... or both.
So, yes, I'm in scramble mode at the moment. For the past week or so my living room has been strewn with yarn and sundry items for gift-making, not to mention a few WIPs and FOs. I actually had completed a cute little shrug for my sister this past summer, but it wasn't quite right. So I sat scrutinizing it for a bit trying to decide whether I'd re-do it, and if so how, or just knit something else. A hat seemed more likely to see the light of day, at least before Christmas, so I dug out that chunky handspun (posted earlier) and embarked upon a hat, a floppy beret perhaps. Pattern? Nooooo.
I knit up a square in stockinette, and then did a few rows of 1x1 ribbing. I stitched up the seam about halfway, and out of curiosity pulled it over my head to find that it was tight on the noggin. Figuring that there was no way for this to turn into the hat I had originally envisioned I turned the half-hat upside down. Now I had a sort of medieval-looking cap with full ear coverage. So with this inkling of inspiration I frogged the part I had seamed, and put the square on smaller DPNs and continued in the round. After having closed up what I thought was the top of the hat, I tried it on again flipped the top of the hat to the back of my head. Lo and behold, a fancy bonnet!
This is lab work, here, people!
My join had been a bit sloppy, so I needed some kind of finished edge to class things up. I snooped around free patterns online and found a simple knitted flower. Perfect. I twisted up a couple of cords for the ear flaps and I tell you it's divine. I am in love with this bonnet. I hope my sister loves it, too. My roommate thinks it's weird, but he concedes that if he saw a girl wearing it, he'd think it was really cute. I like blurring that line of weird & cute, so, like, um, mission accomplished!
