The apple hat part 2

thankfully the decreasing was simple, it was k2tog which i have come know means "knit two together". very simple really. so following my pattern i decreased as required. the DPs seemed ridiculous when dealing with less than 12 stitches but then i finally got to the brown stem. that was pretty easy as well thankfully.

the catch was making those little green leaves, i had no idea how to make the increases they were talking about. thankfully Rachel had the book Stitch 'n Bitch which i borrowed and it had good clear instructions on increasing. still had to do the leaves 3 times before i had one that i liked but with that little wool being used each time i could afford to be picky.

the end result was quite good.


look ma my first hat!

The apple hat part 1

What i'm trying to make is this cute little hat here.
Apple Hat

cast on - check
knit in the round -check


transfer to double-pointed needles and start to decrease.... i need to learn to do that

shopping spree

i hate spending money but sometimes you just have to splash out.

getting ready to make a hat was one of those moments, needed Double-pointed needles, new wool, a set of rounds in the right size. see i learned from my binary scarf experience, you need a set of rounds that is small enough to work without struggling. ^^bb

oh and i bought a needle measuring tool just for good measure.

so many things to knit

Back in January i was browsing knitting websites. lots of patterns, hats, toys, leg warmers, random things to knit. so many projects :)

but had made Blaise a promise not to start something new until the scarf was finished.

learning a technique wouldn't count as making something new so i decided to learn how to use double-pointed needles (DP).

so 4 needles, 3 containing stitches and one working needles. in my reading i had discovered that the most common newbie frustration was that you get a ladder or a loosening of stitches when you switch from one needle to the next. so borrowed a set of DPs from Rachel, grabbed a ball of wool and gave it a go.

i'm either totally lucky or i have a natural talent for DP needle work, not a gap or ladder to be seen.

Binary Scarf

in December 2006 Blaise approached me with a request to knit him a scarf. not any scarf, a scarf knitted with a binary pattern. he had found it off one of his sites and it came from a knitting website known affectionately as Knitty.

there was 2 new skills to learn: knitting in the round and using 2 colours.

the two colours was pretty easy to figure out, you just picked up the colour strand you needed as it comes up in the pattern.
-as an aside, learning binary was fun, making the message was even more fun ^^

the knitting in the round sounded simple enough, all you needed to do was knit and the round needles turned it into a stockinette tube. seemed hard though, i struggled to make 6 rows (which was one set of numbers). progress was slow, birthday 2007 came and went, as did christmas 2007, then 2008 passed.

it became the family joke, "what am i getting for Christmas?" he'd ask with a big grin, "A scarf would be awesome."

skip forward to 2010 and to New Zealand. the scarf came with us, still not a lot of work being done. then one day i went Knitworld where a lovely lady finally pointed out my round needle was TOO FREAKING LONG!! all the struggling to knit and slow progress because i was uing the wrong tools.

a shorter set of rounds and suddenly we were making progress.
finally in July of 2010 it was finished.

The binary scarf December 19, 2006 - July 5, 2010 - HUZZAH!

the on again and off again love of knitting.

I learned to knit at a young age, i was 5 or 6 and mom and grandma taught me how to knit. to this day in the family photo album is pictures of me sitting staring with great intensity at the knitting needles and my work.

i made grandma a tea cosey. it wasn't fancy, it was a varigated white/yellow/green wool, i had two green metal knitting needles and i knitted 2 sides which mom helped me sew together with holes for the spout and handle.

i still have the green needles. they have traveled with me forever. knitting fell off my radar for a long time. on occasion in high school i picked up the needles and knitted squares. eventually i put together a blanket for my grandpapa and that took a couple of years. never anything fancy just a knit stitch.

i suppose the next big push came when we hit New Zealand in 2005. at the Agrodome in Rotorua Blaise and I were blown away by the hand-dyed wool. we each bought a set of wooden needles and a ball of wool. i knitted up a scarf, still a simple knit stitch but with a neat twist where you wrap wool around the needle and then drop the loops off next row.

back in Canada i made a couple more scarves in this pattern. then in December 2006 Binary Scarf reared its head.