Fibers on Friday: It's Been HAT week!

The sweater is finished, so I decided to obsess over some quicker projects. I spent hours looking through Ravelry. I'd been to their site before but didn't create an account, so I wasn't exposed to the huge amounts of patterns they have online. I decided on a pattern called Poppy to knit for my one daughter. It's a "Shaker" "Flapper" style hat. It's so adorable in the pictures, but I'm not sure I'm loving it and I'm not sure it's really my kid's style...we'll see. I'm going to add a little knitted flower to the side flap. Also, it looks a little small.

***edited to add*** I frogged this entire hat last night! It was way too small. So, I started it over with some extra stitches and I'll add a few more rows of pattern. I could tell it's gonna be cute, though!

I also knit up a simple hat for my husband. The basic hat pattern is calculated by using Crazy Aunt Purl's method. I also got caught up in reading almost her entire blog. She's hysterical.

Things I've learned about knitting this week: How to do a provisional cast on.
Things I messed up on this week: the provisional cast on!

The provisional cast-on is used as a means for saving "live stitches" that you're later going to go back and "pick up". You cast on using waste yarn that you can later remove from the project, exposing the stitches you want to pick up and knit. In this case, I went back and picked up stitches to knit the ribbing of my daughter's hat.

There are nice, neat methods of doing the provisional cast on. I did not know this. I just cast on as usual, which made it hard to get rid of those stitches later. You can search for the correct way of casting on on YouTube.

Teeny Tiny Little Needles

My current knitting project is a pair of socks. This is my second attempt at socks. Last year I bought the book Getting Started Kniting Socks and set out to dress my feet in unique style and comfort. Well, my first pair turned out quite thick and Wig Wam-ish. Not, bad, but not really suiting my needs, so I gave them to my sister-in-law who needs thick warmth while she's out in the barn tending to her horses.

So, on this new attempt, I decided to step down....step WAY down....to size 0 needles and very fine yarn. I'm not really loving it, honestly. The needles are so tiny that they make me feel as though I have man-hands! I'm sensitive about this. You see, I used to have beautiful hands. Young, flawless, smooth, unwrinkled, hands with long, always painted fingernails, and rings on almost every finger. They were hands that my Mom would show off to piano salesmen saying, "Do you see these hands? They belong to a pianist." They were hands that got me out of cutting my fingernails in the seventh grade because I told the guitar teacher I couldn't because I was a hand model! Honestly, I did!

And then....oh 1998....I joined the Army. The Army was the demise of my beautiful hands. I cannot tell you for how many hours or for how many miles these hands had to clench onto an M16, but the knobby knuckles and overall burliness of these hands can attest.

So now, I sit down with my teeny tiny size 0 knitting needles and my big hands and I reflect. And I sob. And I hope the socks are worth it all.

Pretty yarn, though, isn't it? Intimidating cluster of needles isn't it?

While I'm at it, I'll show you a few hats that I've made.

And finally, mittens from last year.

That's all I've got for you for now. These socks will take forever, I'm sure.