A Maggie Hat for Me

I’ve been working away knitting, sewing, crafting, baking…on gifts for everyone else. This week, I took some time to make something for me. The yarn I bought at the New England Fiber Festival was just screaming at me to knit with it. I purchased this beautiful Fantom Farm Romney hand spun wool blend.

This picture isn’t the best – but the final pictures are perfect. It is a very soft and springy yarn that was a dream to work with. It was all by itself and there was nothing like it at the show. I truly think it picked me. I chose it to finally make a Maggie Hat for myself. I have been waiting and waiting for the right yarn. I cast on last week. The pictures below better represent the color of the yarn.

I finished it up on Sunday. I am so happy with this hat. The wool is super warm, I tested it on Monday when we had freezing temps here during the day.

I omitted the seed stitch band from the hat because I wanted to show off the yarn. Once I tried it on, I realized it is perfect, just the way it is.

Now I need to work on some mittens to match!

The list never ends does it? Happy Knitting!

A Hoot of a Hat

Last night I finished Griff’s owl hat. I was hoping it would be an acceptable replacement to the Dinosaur Hat. It was so cute, I showed it to Griff this morning and said “look what I finished Griff,” when he saw it he said “OH! You finished my owl hat, NICE MUM MUM, REAL NICE!” He grabbed it to put on and wouldn’t take it off. The look on his face made it SO worth it.

I got him outside for a quick photo shoot before school. This pattern is the “Owl Hat” by Amy Gillespie. Griffin saw this pattern one day over my shoulder as I was scrolling through patterns on Ravelry. When he saw it, he insisted on me making him an owl hat. How could I resist?

I happened to have tan and brown “Nature’s Choice” Organic Cotton by Lions Brand in my stash. It was perfect for this hat. It made it extremely soft and warm.

This pattern was a little harder than I anticipated, there are lots of pieces. I changed up the pattern a bit. I made the ear flaps/wings one piece instead of the 4 pieces written in the pattern. I started with one stitch and increased every other row to 24, then decreased every row to one. I also used garter stitch on the wings to give them more texture and make them more “feather” like. I’d like to give a quick shout out to my friend from knitting group who gave me just enough orange yarn to complete the beak!

I think he loves it, what do you think?

RIP Dinosaur Hat

Yep, that’s right. Yesterday, we lost the Griffasaurous Hat while at the mall. In the cool weather, we journeyed to the mall to play on the inside playground. We had it the whole trip. On the way out, Griff took it off, and somehow in the confusion, it must have fallen to the floor. We had only made it to the door before I realized it was gone *frown*. We checked with a few of the stores that we were near at the time, no one had turned a “dinosaur” hat in. I must have looked like a crazy woman asking frantically for a knit dinosaur hat. We even went to customer service and asked. They looked at me like I had ten heads. I guess none of them were knitters. I really felt like saying – have you seen a dinosaur hat knit with two skeins of coordinating Tahki 100% cotton yarn and 6 hours of my own finger work??? Nevermind, that it is Griff’s favorite hat. It’s a total bummer.

I did fill out a report with customer service, like a total freak. What do you think the odds are that someone picked it up and will turn it in? It sure would be funny to see someone else wearing it at the playground one of these days, don’t you think?

Although, I am very sad and disappointed it’s gone, I have already been working on a warmer hat for the winter months. I have cast on and have the hat part done and am now doing all the little pieces and parts…it’s the Owl Hat by Amy Gillespie. Here’s a picture for those of you not on Ravelry.

Source: Ravelry.com (evelynnsmommy) Her Blog: Munchkin Land

I’ll feel better when this hat is done. I am hoping it will fill the place of the dinosaur hat. I know Griff is over it, but I am not quite over it yet!

A Perfect Set

My Jindabyne Cowl by Michelle Johnston in my last WIP Post is now complete! What a fun knit this was. It is made up of very easy stitches, but changes up so much that you only have to memorize two rows. I just added stitch markers before each stitch change and away I went. This is the perfect project to be able to pick up and put down and always remember where you are.

I didn’t get fantastic pictures because it’s kinda hard to take pictures of myself while wearing it! But I did snap enough to show it off to you!

I chose brown wooden buttons to give it a traditional and timeless appeal. I love how the Berroco Vintage yarn draped for this project. It’s so soft and warm and a total dream to work with. Below is another shot with the hat the I made to match!

The hat is made with wool ease. It’s a simple K4P1 pattern that I did. I don’t have a pattern for it, I kinda winged it with inspiration from the Maggie Hat. I also had my first try at embroidery with the snowflakes. I used the same blue Berroco yarn from my cowl to embroider the snowflakes. I don’t think they came out half bad.

Together they are an awesome set! But I probably should have thrown on some make-up for my photo shoot! LOL! I have a few other projects in queue, but after those, I am going to make some mittens to match. I purchased some smaller wooden buttons to make fancy cuffs and figured I could embroider more snowflakes for fun. What are you working on?

Hats Hats Hats

I’ve been playing around with a lot of hat patterns lately. I love hats. I love wearing them, I love knitting them…I love everything about them. These are the hats I knit this week…

The Girly Hat by Sabrina F. Santa Cruz. This is a very cute knit with a touch of color work. I used Vanna’s Choice by Lion Brand Yarns. I used colorways Dusty Green and Rose Mist. It is a rib brim with a seed stitch detail band. The original pattern called for a crocheted flower, but I liked it just the way it is.

I also just finished the Button-Tab Hat by Marcie Nishiok. Again, this is made with Vanna’s Choice by Lion Brand. I used color way Dusty Rose. It is another great knit with four GREAT variations in her free pattern on Ravelry.com. I chose the garter stitch version. I found a perfect button for this hat. It is a hand made replica of a vintage flower pin. I think it adds just the right detail to this perfect hat.

The Maggie Hat

I just finished the most lovely pattern. For most of you who know the “knitting me”, you know I don’t like to follow patterns. Well, this pattern I followed. It was super simple and quick moving.

It’s a pattern of staggered cables with a seed stitch band accent.

It’s a fun vintage look with a bit of 20′s flair. The original pattern has a button for the band, but I wanted to make it a bit more vintage. I ventured to my local estate store and rummaged through the piles and piles of brooches and pins. I tried on no less than 20 pins of all sizes, colors and patterns. I think people thought I was nuts as I kept trying on this hat in our 80 degree weather! Then in the last bin (of course) was this beautiful little flower pin.

It’s black with a brushed pinkish color. I thought I would be looking for something bigger, but when I tried this one on, it looked like it belonged.

Details on the pattern: The Maggie Hat by Tina Sanders.  The pattern is $4.00 and worth it! I plan on making this hat more than once. It’s a great gift hat with the holidays coming. You can also download the pattern from Ravelry.com.

Happy Knitting!

Griffasaurous

A few weeks ago, I was clicking through my favorites on ravelry.com looking for a new project. Griffin was watching and eyed “Roar, A Dinosaur Hat” a pattern by Tot Toppers. He started jumping up and down and said “Mommy, make me a dinosaur hat so I can put it on my hair and say roar”. Over the next few days Griffin kept asking if we could go to the store and get yarn to make his hat. Finally, we hit the LYS to get contrasting green cotton yarn.

I chose Cotton Classic yarn by Tahki. It’s a very light worsted. I had to change the needle size to size 6 to make it work. I still followed the pattern and size came out spot on. It worked up very quickly and only took me about 4 hours to do the whole project.

Griffasaurous was watching as I finished up sewing on the last of the spikes. He was so anxious. It was so funny to have him so interested in something I was knitting.

As soon as it was done, he was grabbing at it to put it on, I barely got the ends sewn in.

He wore it all day yesterday and I had to talk him into taking it off before bed.

He has already grabbed it and put it on this morning while we eat our breakfast. It goes kinda cute with his Thomas the Train pjs.