I suppose you thought that there would be a finished sweater to present you with today, but you would be mistaken, mostly because of my own inability to pry myself out of the house in daylight hours this weekend to take unassisted tripod photos and a touch of unhappiness with the final result. So instead I present you with my own version of Hockey’s Hat Trick.

Score three goals and they throw hats on the ice for you. Hopefully they are not hand knit (although I think they do give them to charity when it happens so maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing)! Call it the winter doldrums, call it the lack of daylight, call it my own persistent boredom with pretty much everything lately, but the aforementioned Turn a Square hat bears an uncanny resemblance to the potato chip in that it is impossible to just make one!

All three of these were made from one measly skein of Cascade 220 and one equally measly skein of Noro Silk Garden. The first started out with 96 stitches on a size 7 needle, the second and third with the same number of stitches on a size 6. It’s difficult to tell from the picture, but they are progressively smaller in size, the last being finished during the All-Star game this weekend.

I’m hoping they will fit *someone* who attends the MLA meeting next month in Chicago, since I’ll be donating them to the silent auction/shop there as part of MLA’s fundraising efforts. We’ll see how they go.

And to further the hockey reference, I realized this morning that after attending this Chicago meeting I will have visited the city of almost all of the original six teams. I have spent a day nearly walking my feet off to the ankles in Boston, I’ve driven through Montreal, I’ve been through the Toronto airport, I have a rather intimate knowledge of New York… perhaps my trains will run through Detroit? We’ll see… Now if only I could actually see a game in all six cities!

And since a couple of people asked, here’s a short tutorial on the jogless jog technique that this pattern calls for. You’ll pardon the craptastic photographs, but they were the best I could muster with only two hands, a tripod and compact florescent lighting. I think they are at least clear enough to give you the general idea. So to illustrate the technique, allow me to directly quote the pattern:

“Knit 1 round of the new color.”

“When faced with the first stitch of the second round: pick up a loop of the first color from the preceding row…”

“…and place it on the left needle.”

“K both the 1st st of the new color and the picked up st of the previous row together.”

So there you have it!

Questions? Ask away and I will try and answer.

I’ve been finding these small projects incredibly satisfying lately. It seems like a good January thing to do. Expect to see more soon, but hopefully they won’t be hats!

I tend to be a pretty monogamous knitter these days. I get focused on a project and I just can’t stop working on it. That is, unless my fickle brain decides it doesn’t like something about the project or it gets bored. Mostly though, I only have one or two things on the needles at once. If I have too many WIPs, I start to panic. Anyone with me?

But then I realize that I have travel knitting coming up and that the Boatneck Bluebell will be done and what am I going to knit all week?!?!?

That’s real panic people.

So I started the hat on Monday.

Can I just say the little braid is a pain to knit? The two yarns twisting around each other was almost enough to make me tear my hair out. What you see here is probably about 2 hours worth of knitting. Seriously. I’m knitting this with some handspun and a yarn called Pace that I picked up in Pittsburgh at last year’s conference (just realized that. Pretty appropo to be knitting with last year’s conference souvenirs at this year’s conference!). HWJF picked the colors. I do not approve of the black, but I’m sure as heck not ripping it out!

To soothe my frazzled nerves from that project I started this one.

It’s Annemor #8 from Selbuvoter. Once I figured out what size needle I was using (things got a bit jumbled in the move and my needle organization failed me a bit) things seem to be going along well. I think these will match my new coat nicely. And I’m excited about doing gloves for the first time. Fingers! Woo!

You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers

Some bloggers get a lot of questions from their readers. Me? Notsomuch. So I’m taking my life in my hands opening up the floor for y’all! Ask me something! Anything! Something you’ve always been wondering? Ask! And I’ll answer it right here next week. Just remember, it’s my blog so if I decide it isn’t appropriate for posting in cyberspace (like if it’s crazy personal or something), I may decide not to post here. Just sayin’.

Have a great weekend everyone!

*goes to watch e-mail with baited breath…*

P.S. Whomever found my blog by searching “socks for fat feet patterns”…. Sorry! We only have big feet here!

P.P.S. I must have been extra good lately. Just sayin’.

Brrrr!!!

Originally uploaded by summerofsocks2006

When winter really finally shows up, what’s a cold little knitter to do? Make a Very Warm Hat of course! Inspiration courtesy of EZ’s Knitting Around, Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top and McGregor’s Traditional Scandinavian Knitting. Yarn leftover from Morehouse Merino Sweaters knit last year. What could be warmer?