Hat #8: Noro Spiral-ish

Hat #8 is ready for its close up!

I kinda sorta used a spiral effect but ended up sort of accidentally made it a "broken" spiral - about 2/3 up the hat the spiraling eyelets break off and start again a few rows later. I kinda liked it!

More pictures and a pattern after the jump!

Hat #7: Who?!?!

Hat 7 is complete!

I used this pattern:

Owl Hat by Ruthie Nussbaum.

Yeah it's supposed to be owls. It's a little hard to see them because I picked such a thick and dark-colored yarn (Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn in Mulberry). But I've found if you TELL someone that it's owls, they can see it right away and it's obvious. Otherwise it just looks like cables.

Click "Read More" for more pictures, if you want. :)

Hat #6: Wurm Hat for a kiddo :)

Hat #6 is done - a lot faster than I thought it would be!

My daughter was jealous of all these hats I've been making for people. So, even though I JUST MADE HER ONE:

I let her pick out a skein of yarn from my stash (she chose this skein of Knit Picks Stroll Sock Yarn in Tree Fort):

And a pattern:

Wurm by Katharina Nopp (Ravelry link)

And...

Hat #5: Stripey Hat!

Hat #5 makes its appearance!!

This one was so super fun to do that even though I totally screwed up the beginning of the swirl pattern I don't even mind. I might make this hat AGAIN anyway! I still love it.

The pattern? Swirl Hat by Mandie Harrington (Ravelry link - be sure to sign in to see the pattern!)

It's kind of genius! It looks complicated as hell, but the swirl pattern is created using a crafty and diabolical combination of YO's and K2Tog's. Brilliant! And I used less than one skein of this marvelous Knit Picks Felici Self-Striping yarn in Building Blocks (which I think might be discontinued as of this posting):

I don't have a lot to add, but if you click "Read More" you can see more beauty shots of the hat, including full-on shots of how awesome the swirl looks from different angles!

Hat #4: My Own Hat

Sorry for no posts Thursday and Friday last week y'all. I came down with a WICKED stomach virus and I couldn't do anything but lay on the couch, binge-watch Masterchef (I want to cook ALL THE THINGS)...and knit.

I made a whole hat, out of sock yarn, in just a few days. That's not including, of course, the two full days it took to wind up the hank of Malabrigo I used. As a friend of mine put it, Malabrigo uses drunken donkeys to skein their yarns, and I am pretty sure I agree. But it was so, so worth it.

It was a pretty, simple little hat pattern. I didn't want anything too spicy to re-introduce myself into the wild and wonderful world of "knitting things more complex than a square". But I think the effect is pretty nice.

Click "Read More" for more wonderful pictures. :)

Hat #3: Baby Hug Hat

Hat #3 has been completed! I am on a roll. :) I love this adorable little baby hat, just like I love the adorable little baby whose head it will adorn when I (finally) meet him this weekend!

I used a pattern found on Ravelry that was simple enough to be completed in a few hours, but complex enough not to be boring: the Hug Hat by Cathy Hardy. Nice job Cathy!

I'm casting on a somewhat more complex (and incredibly boring) hat for myself today, but in the meantime I thought I'd show you some of my recent thrift store acquisitions, all of which are due for some level of attack, be it minor fixes or MAJOR OVERHAULS:

Hat #2: Basic Ribbed Crochet Hat

Geez, I feel like I'm going to end up making 30 hats before Christmas.

THAT'S IT. I'M JUST GONNA MAKE 30 HATS BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

New challenge. That's good, I like challenges. And I have a WHOLE bunch of yarn scraps to use up. 

Click "Read More" to find out how I did this. It's not really a pattern, but more like a formula. This was fun and quick and I'll probably do more like this before the challenge is over. :)

Hat #1: Three-Hour Ribbed Knit Hat

Ahhh, November is here. I'll be honest - I kind of hate November. It's not so much that bad things happen in November. Thanksgiving is awesome, and I have some good friends who have birthdays during this month, but overall it just has always been kind of a blah month for me. Too far from Christmas to start getting excited, and Halloween and the excitement of fall starting have already passed. It's one of those awful "in between" months where it's just kind of cold and nasty outside.

Fortunately, cold and nasty outside means I get to knit!

I haven't actually picked up a pair of knitting needles in a long time. I used to knit feverishly, constantly, effortlessly, every day. I knit while watching TV. I knit before bed. I knit while stopped in traffic (not really because that's DANGEROUS). But lately? I don't know. I lost some of the fire. I wanted to get it back.

No better way than to get it back by knitting up my quick-and-easy almost-always-improvised knit hat - a perfect celebration of impending winter (eww) and my hopeful foray back into the world of the great and powerful fiber arts!

I wrote a (kind of) tutorial for this post. Click "Read More" for that tutorial and some other fun stuff!

WIP report

First of all, I'm posting this from my phone for the VERY FIRST TIME OMG. So it could suck. Don't judge me...judge the Blogger app. Unless this post is awesome, of course, in which case it was all me baby!

I've got a couple of things I'm actively working on, so I thought I'd share.

First of all, I suppose I need to briefly explain Nerd Wars. On the prolific fiber arts site known as Ravelry.com, Nerd Wars serves as a place where nerds, geeks, and obsessives of all types can come together and inflict massive, global-scale bloodshed upon one another in the name of creativity based upon our favorite nerdery. You sign up for a team (i.e. Team Tardis for Who fans, Team Precious for LOTR fans, Team 1-Up, my home team, for video games, etc.). You get five challenges a month, and each person who can knit, crochet, weave, or spin a project which answers that challenge wins points for their team, with bonus points every time you can tie your response into your team's nerdly obsession.

A tournament lasts three months, and at the end of the tourney, all points are totaled and a winner is declared. It's not usually Team 1-Up, but hey, we are literally the only team that cannot participate in both knitting AND our nerdery. It's physically impossible to knit and kick Ganon's ass at the same time.

During each tournament you can elect to create a dissertation, or a project that will reasonably take you 3 months to complete. I almost always try, but rarely succeed. However, this time? It is ON. I have the best pattern, the best yarn, and enough motivation to make a bull meditate in a China shop. Here is my progress on this project so far: