Oh My God, It's Full of Stars...

August in the Knitter's Almanac is devoted to Christmas "fiddle faddle", and is probably the most enjoyably written chapter. It's like the original knitting blog, pre-internet. Aside from my general affection for this chapter and the endearing story of two old people tooling around in the wilderness in a canoe, I was not won over by the patterns. My tree turned out bloated and floppy (I won't even burden you with a picture of it), and I didn't even try the angel as it looked really too old-fashioned for my tastes. Stars, FTW, however.

I made a bevy of them, and sold them at the Christmas market at our children's school. They took about 15 minutes to make, took up very little yarn, and look quite charming two-toned.

PS. Yes, you caught me! I backdated this post. We decided to send our son to a school that is approximately a 1 hour commute away. Which, there-and-back-again two times a day, means I have had 4 hours less a day for knitting, blogging, and life in general. I know, "knit on the train!" is what you are thinking -- "not with a baby whose dearest love in life is to grab yarn" is my answer.

June Round Up

Added to the June pile: Ganomy

Knit in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, a very servicable nice wool. I held it double to closer match the stated guage in the pattern which is rather large. I did run out of yarn for the last few yards, so I used a matching green bit I had left over from something else. I rather liked the method for making the little bobble at the top. It's a nice alternative to pom-poms, tassles, or just a bare peak. I didn't use a ping-pong ball as suggested, but just a little leftover ball of somethig-or-other.

I added a line of embroidery just above the brim in green, to match the top of the bobble. All in all: a simple, solid pattern that I would be happy to knit again.

---

Also knit in June, but not yet photographed: a mini fisherman's hat that is totally adorable on a baby head.

Pentagon Hat

By the same principle as the Three-Corner hat from the June chapter in the Knitter's Almanac, I devised this Five-Corner version. It was quite simple, just made a gauge swatch, and determined how many stitches around the headband should be. Then I knit up aways as instructed in the pattern (though with a deeper headband than in the pattern, which is quite shallow). I increased in the same proportion as the pattern, and then chose five points to decrease instead of three. I decreased at a slightly less-frequent rate to make up for the fact that I was decreasing more each round. Simple!

The yarn is Knit Picks Elegance in color Daisy. Silk and baby alpaca... heaven! The original pattern calls for a gauge of 11 stitches to 4 inches, so I held this yarn double on a 5mm needle to get a gauge closer to that. Way fatter gauge than I am used to knitting. But it was fast!

the best part: my son loves it!

May-June Mashup

After Ruby's mittens were finished, there was plenty of yarn, and when I was browsing the June hat patterns, the three-cornered tam seemed very similar to the construction of the mittens. So, I had the bright idea to make a matching 3-cornered hat for Ruby. Of course, with the Rauma 3-ply Strikkegarn the guage was all off from the pattern, but it's a fairly simple construction and I was able to translate it succesfully.

In my opinion the head band of this was way too shallow, and after the hat was all finished, I picked up the stitches and knit down another 5 rows or so. And as you can see, it's still rather shallow. I knit one other hat with this same pattern, different yarn (which was more to the guage of the pattern) and it was also too shallow.

the awesomeness of this hat is this big