pictures to come...

22: Nic's Hot Head

The first project finished was a wonder to kick out: 5 hours of chunky wool stripes and she was done. The hardest part was getting up the courage to sew the seam after I bungled it on my first attempt.

I learned a few things from this hat. First of all, I learned from the staff of Romni that you can mix yarns and your project won't necessarily suffer as a result (the yellow was Fritidsgarn 100% ren; orange and red were Topp't Ta 100% Superwash ull; black was Ornaghi filati Super Merino 65% Lana merion, 35% Acrilico). Having highly contrasting stripes helped this, of course. Second, I realized that I hate seams and would prefer a nice knit-in-the-round hat any day. Still, it's a stunning hat. I love it.

23: Dad's Basic Black Scarf

I started two Christmas gifts at the begining of September: the Loopy Velez Cowl and the Ribbed Scarf, one for each of my parents. Partway through the scarf, I decided to make it a keyhole model based on the "Windy City" scarf in Sn'B. Most of this scarf was knit during a 2-day professional development seminar (on the second day, the presenter used me as an example of different learning styles). My only problem was that the skeins were pretty short and the whole thing is a bit shorter than I'd planned. Still, it's long enough and the keyhole will help it stay on. It's in basic black (yarn = Ornaghi filati Super Merino 65% Lana merion, 35% Acrilico), honouring my father's love for simple, classic clothes.

26: Mom's Purple Loopy Velez Cowl

This was knit in DGB Confort, a fuzzy wool/acrylic blend, as Mom hates "the smell of wool" and is unconvinced that processing has improved since the sixties. Lots of intimidating yarn ends kept this project from full completion, owing to the fact that I had to go back and bind off again after I had cut the yarn. The horror. The horror.

Bought way too much yarn for this project, as I failed to notice that the original yarn is sold in wee little balls of 50g. I'm undecided whether to take back the yarn for credit or make something else, like a purple pixie hat.

28: D6 Wine Cozy

Another gift: a wine cozy for the in-laws, who never remember that I hate wine. At least I know they like it a lot, hence the idea for this cozy! Unlike the original pattern, this one is going to go up without seams, so we'll see how it goes with adapting the pattern. I used cheap burgandy acrylic from a ball that I bought for a Tychus but then started for Little Spider's cell phone cozy. I also incorporated a random single stripe of grey wool left over from Zeeby's Bag (isn't it done yet?!), placement determined by the rolling of 2 d6s. The Boy is in awe at my seamless integration of knittery and geekery. Obviously he hasn't seen this sweater!

Minimal finishing with this one, and only a few headaches. I knit the ribbing back-and-forth because the ribbing-in-the-round just wasn't working out, then joined on the stockinette. Also, it took about 6 repeats to figure out how to adapt the jogless-jog technique for a single stripe, so I had to dupe stitch a few places to fix it (and one spot is a still a horror).

This was my first time with tassels. I don't think I have a future as a stripper costumer.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 12/25/2005 12:23:00 p.m.