What Cheer, Netop?

I've been working on a knitted hat for my nephew Ezra's fourth birthday (I know, I know: clothes for presents = worst uncle ever). He's really into the Pixar movie Cars, so I decided to put red cars on it, like Lightning McQueen in the movie.

I still have a bunch of merino (now carefully bagged away) in random colors, so I used the Luggy Bonnet pattern from Weekend Knitting again -- I've used it a couple of times before, so you may recognize it.

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His birthday is on October 13, so hopefully I will see him around then to give it to him. (Or I might give it to his parents before then since I will be out of town on the 13th itself, visiting a previous recipient of a Luggy Bonnet hat with a customized pattern. He will also get H.A. Rey's book about stars.)

The other day I was going through my yarn stash when I found what might perhaps be best described as a fossilized project. As I recall, after some missteps (involving ripping the entire thing out, then knitting one section too long, then ripping out too much, then having to calculate where I was in the pattern) I got sick of it, carefully packed the yarn, pattern, yarn lables, and receipt away, and then completely forgot about it until now. The receipt is dated October 2005, so I must have intended it as a Christmas present for Ezra -- but it'll be way too small for him now, so maybe his baby sister will get it if I don't lose it again. (Baby sister is due to be born sometime around October 10.)

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Anyway, tomorrow I think I will try to figure out where I stand with it and maybe I will start knitting it again.

Or maybe I will make this dolphin.

What do you think? Too goofy?

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The pattern is from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan, which my sister gave to me for HMas. The yarn is Green Mountain Spinner Mountain Mohair, which is 70% wool and 30% yaerling mohair. I used slightly more than a skein.

According to the book the pattern on the top is based on the spiral pattern found in a sunflower, but christychristy suggested that it looked more like an acorn cap, which I think is true.

You can see that there's basically four sections of the hat: the ribbed edge, the stockinette bit, the decrease part with the faux cables, and finally the icord. I'm thinking of making another one with the a longer stockinette section, as currently when the ribbed part is flipped up it barely reaches my ears. (I see from pictures in the book that you're not supposed to flip up the edge but I mean come on.) Also, I'd like to experiment with using two or three different colors in the hat.

So maybe I'll make one more of these hats, then get to work on blanket bits for another project.
[Poll #943416]

A while ago, cgoldfish strongly hinted that she would like me to make her a hat from Weekend Knitting which I had previously made for a friend's newborn baby. The book had the pattern sized for adults, too, so this seemed doable ...

Not long after her birthday we went to A Stitch Above and she picked out a couple of new merino colors for use on the main part of the pattern. I had worked on a couple of alternative designs from the ones given in the book (which had hearts and stars) and she picked the one of those that she liked also.

From there it was pretty easy to knit the hat up ... although I did make a mistake at the end which was almost disasterous, but I managed to recover. Anyway, here are some pictures of the hat by itself and modeled by Marvin the Paranoid Android and the meerkat. I confess to thinking that the Marvin picture is almost unspeakably cute.

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Anyway, I'm really happy with how it came out, and I look forward to giving the finished product to cgoldfish the next time I see her.

Tomorrow I go to Massachusetts where I will give my nephew his birthday stuffed robot. (He's turning two on Thursday.)

I bought some yarn from neau not too long ago and, after consulting my sister and her husband, decided that this hat pattern from knitty.com would be just the ticket. I didn't think I had enough neau yarn to knit the whole thing, so I made the folded-up band using a different yarn.

Tonight I finished it!

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The yarn was (as you might guess) a little strange to work with, but it was fun and I am quite happy with how the hat came out. (I think it will be pretty warm, too, which is nice since it's starting to get cold out.)

I noticed that the yarn has a noticeable sort of cinnamon smell which is quite pleasant (although I imagine it will fade as time passes). When I asked her about this, neau told me she used to keep a sachet in her yarn bin ... plus she burns incense while spinning her wool which might add to the mix. It's something else.

If you want some of her yarn to play with yourself, she sells stuff in a few places: her livejournal, her ebay store, and I believe pluckyfluff is going to start carrying some of her yarn soon.