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my new bloggy home: http://debcarr.com/blog/

I love hats. Nice and quick, with so many options. Great for experiments in color, texture and shaping. Perfect use for a small amount of yarn. And you can never have too many. But if you did have too many you could simply give them away, especially in our climate where everybody needs at least one warm hat. They make great gifts. Like these:


Hab's Hat
pattern: improvised basic 2/2 rib toque
yarn: KnitPicks Swish DK
needles: 3.75mm Bryspun 16" circular, 3.75mm dpns

Last year I decided my uncle should have a nice warm smooshy hat. He walks in the evenings and is out and about a lot. When I asked for his colour preference he first said black, but then "it should probably have red in it, and blue...". I knew we were headed straight for his favorite hockey team, the Montreal Candiens. After a little web-surfing, I came up with some stripe proprtions I liked. I was going to use Jessica's ribbed hat pattern but it seemed to be coming out too small. So I ripped it out and cast on 100 st (long tail cast on alternating 2 knit, 2 purl) and started working a 2/2 rib. I love 2/2 ribs because they are so stretchy and so compact. I added the Canadiens' stripes after enough length for a fold-up brim. I began the decreases in the purl section with a p2tog in each 20 st section, and used the same decrease every second row 'til I got to 10 st. It's a bit pointy on top, so next time I make a hat like this, I'll make the decreases in every row for the last rows. I might also put the color stripes in the fold-up part. Right now they sit pretty high on the head. Overall I'm pretty happy with it, especially the tail-weaving. It's pretty much reversible, though the top on the right side is knit, so on the inside it's purled. By the way, Harvey the pig has a rather small head so all hats look big on him.


Brother Love
pattern: Thorpe by Jessica K., adjusted for weight of yarn and ribbed edge, no earflaps.
yarn: HighTales Alpaca 3-ply, Coco % Merlin
needles: 5mm Brittanny dpns, KnitPicks 16" circular

I love the yarn, a bulky weight 3-ply from a local alpaca farmer. Coco and Merlin are the paca's the fiber came from. Merlin is young fella with the silkiest black hair imaginable. I decided to buy the blend because of the richness of the black and Coco's brown combined. It's incredibly soft and thick.
The yarn looked like aran weight inthe skein, but when I began working with it, I realized how dense it actually was and it fluffed up quite a bit. I'm expecting it will bloom some more when I wash it, which I have to do before I send it off to it's new home with my big brother.
Working from the top down was great since I wsn't sure how big I wanted the hat to be (my brother and I both got the humungo-noggin gene; I like to think it's due to our exceptionally large and superior brains ) or how far the yarn would go. I could have made a fold up brim, but this is alpaca, and thick alpaca at that. I want it to be warm, but days that require double layers of bulky alpaca only happen one or twice a year around here. I really like the hat and I think my bro will get quite a bit of use out of it.

I've got a couple more hats in the queue including a colourwork beret, if I can ever make up my mind about the colours...

Do I really need another knit-along? Well, probably not, but this hat is perfect for the wool I got, and hats don't take very long... right?

Here's the specs on M's wrap, finally


Fuzzy Wrap
pattern: Tie One On, blue pattern, with mods
yarn: Elann Super Kydd, Ice Blue
needles: 4.25mm for body, 3.25mm for ties.

This was a lovely piece to knit up. I followed the size and shaping from the pattern but changed up the lace stitch patterns, sections of purse fagoting separated by bands of alternating eyelets. The ties took as long to knit as the body since they were done on the smaller needles. I liked the gradual taper included before the switch to smaller needles. I didn't bother to block it because I really liked the look and feel of it, and the intended recipient is a very small woman. It turned out perfect for her (she thought so too ). I had thought the ties looked a little short, but they seemed to be just right.

I may very well use this pattern again. It's a fairly quick knit, and makes a great stay-on-your-shoulders wrap for fancy or everyday. I was thinking of making the pink pattern with sportweight and something fluffy for my teenage cousin. If I were to make one for myself I would make it both longer and wider, and probably put longer ties on it as well, or I could use heavier yarn and bigger needles with the lace-weight pattern.

Before Christmas I lost a bit of knitting time to illness (just a bad cold), so I trimmed my knit gifts list a bit. OK, a lot. But that was a good thing because I really enjoyed the knitting I was doing, and not feeling like I had to get through it fast.

I finished the wrap for my brother's girlfriend. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and Michelle was delighted with it. I also made a little silver ring-and-stick pin to go with it.

My brother missed out on the knit gifts this year, but I have plans to make him an alpaca hat. I made one with HighTales 3-ply (bulky weight) alpaca, but I'm not sure if he'll get it or whether it'll go to my cousin who lives in northern Alberta. I started another with Frog Tree sport weight alpaca, but I'm not real happy with the yarn. I'm thinking about getting the knitting machine out for that one, because, really, do I want to knit a double-layer toque in stockinette with slippery sport weight yarn by hand?

I also started a pair of socks for DB, but after getting him to try on the half-finished sock, I think I'm going to rip them out. The cuff was about an inch longer than it should have been, and a bit baggy. I think he'd be better off with ribbed socks, and there's not enough knitted foot to salvage for that.

So now I've got several pairs of socks to be getting on with. They should make good travelling projects and I nice break from the four mystery lace KAL's I joined. Yes, four. And they all start in the next two months. At some point I will end up with all four on the needles unless I put one off for a while. And I'm already behind on the first one . I sat down and swatched for the “Spring Shawl Surprice” a couple of days ago. I bought a bucketload of lace yarns so I have a couple of choices. I really like the lambswool/angora from Colourmart, but it blocks out quite open and airy. The cone feels awfully light but I really don't know how much of it I've previously used. I have several swatches and mis-starts floating around here somewhere. I started to do the second swatch in Colourmart cash/merino, which I know I would like, but the swatch keeps going awry on the 12th or 13th row. The cash/merino really blooms up nice, fuller than the angora blend even though they're the same weight.

I think I've got enough knitting projects on the to-do list to keep me busy for the rest of the year. The knitting was pretty intense this past year and pretty much my main focus, craft-wise. I want to do some other stuff as well in 2008. I've got some rughooking projects on the go that I want to get done since I've told myself I can't start any new ones until I've got at least 2 finished. I want to get back into spinning too, especially since my brother agreed to make me a spinning wheel (yay!). I've also got to make up some penny rugs for pattern samples. My Auntie A made one up for me already, in only one weekend (picture to come later)! I hope I can do so well