Loose ends

I've been in a finishing mood lately, though I would have thought I'd had enough of endings.  There's something to be said for closure, at any rate.

I finished the twined mittens I started back in February.  I need to take a better picture so I can upload it to the pattern page.  The technique was a lot of fun once I got the hang of it.

I made myself a hat:

It's the Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret that's so popular on Ravelry (13000+ projects - so viral I would have avoided it except I saw one in person and fell hard in love).  I had to make some mods to get it to fit my head, mostly just adding stitches and then adjusting for the increases and decreases so the cables still worked.  I love the colors in this yarn (Knit Picks Chroma in Hollyhock).  Purple and grey may be my new grey and pink.

I've also caught up on a few dishcloths.

Zig Zag dishcloth by Faith Schmidt

Simple Lines by Chelsea Berkompas

Orbital Dishcloth by Stacey Winklepleck

And my showstopper:

Petticoat Dishcloth, by Kendra Nitta

This dishcloth is just a little crazy.  You start at the outside edge and cast on 200+ stitches, knit a bit, and then on a separate needle cast on another ridiculous number of stitches and knit a bit and then join the two pieces together, cast on a third piece, knit, join, and finally knit down to the center.  Were I designing this I would have started from the center, worked out, and then picked up the stiches for the second and third ruffles so everything was worked in one piece, but perhaps that isn't as simple or neat as it sounds in my head.

The yarn is Cotlin DK.  I started this thing in April, all that ruffling in light yarn took this long to finally finish.  As long as it took, and as frustrating as it was to try and join so many stitches on a 16" cable without twisting, it was really a lot of fun to knit.  I can't even imagine using it as a dishcloth.  Right now it's sitting on my bathroom counter collecting bobby pins and hair-ties, kind of a fiber-happy take on the those catch-all bathroom trays that I've noticed we're selling in the Domestics dept. recently.

In other news, it's officially footie pajama weather.

T is for..

Time Warp.

Wherein I blog about something I missed the first time around, or finished before the blog existed. Such entries are usually made on Tuesday, but whatever, I need to catch up.

I always have such grand plans to make stuff for my dolls, but it's frustratingly rare that I ever do. I was stuck home sick one day, though, and the AG group on Ravelry was having a contest, so I whipped out my crochet hook and actually made something!

The pattern is called Off to Bath, and it's to match a girl-sized capelet of the same name. Both are from "Austentatious Crochet".

The shells are made up of elongated double crochet stitches that are a bit of a nuisance, but it's just three rows and then the collar and ties and you're done. I used Red Heart Soft, which is a decent acrylic, more substantial than Caron Simply Soft.

There isn't much to the piece, but I like how it goes with the red velvet dress.

Patterns I love that start with T:

TARDIS Tissue Box Cover (free!)
Tea Time Colonial Dress for American Girl - speaking of doll clothes...
The Teddy Bear that Saved Me - the designer knit these to sell while he was homeless
Theodóra - Icelandic doll knit from Icelandic yarn
Through the Woods... - cabled neckwarmer with hood
Travelling Gnome (free!)
Tudor Rose - ruffled, beaded cuffs
Twinkle Twinkle Baby Blanket

Q is for...

Quitting.

As in, I secretly want to quit making dishcloths. I am ready to banish from my sight all cotton yarn. I fantasize about hiding the dip (dishcloths in progress) under my bed and committing to a wild spree of mittens.

I've had a bad week on the kitchen cotton front. I didn't come close to finishing last week's dishcloth (and any dishcloth that starts with "Cast on 239 stitches" is bound to be a pill), and my standby dishcloth with its blasted fair-isle chart was no comfort, so I cast on this week's dishcloth early, but the single tapestry crochet was nearly as much of a frustrating time-suck, and thus I still didn't get a dishcloth out in time.

It really makes me want to throw the towel in.

At the same time, I find that I don't want to quit. I don't want to be a quitter. I want to be able to keep to this one dumb goal that I have made for myself this year.

Among other qualities, I have a stubborn streak a mile long.

Week ?

Aztec Dishcloth by Kalurah Hudson
Peaches & Creme, Ecru; Sugar'n Cream, Red

I hate, hate, hate single crochet.  Tapestry crochet, however, is a beautiful thing.  I love the way the unused colors just travel along, neatly hidden under the stitches as you go.  Half-double crochet may be the way to go in future for the best of both worlds.  I left off the extra color bars at the top and bottom because I didn't want a giant rectangular dishcloth.

Patterns I love that start with Q:

Quercus - tweedy mittens with a cabled wristband
Queen Anne's Lace scarf - crochet (free!)
Quant - entrelac headband/earwarmer (free!)
Quinn Cabled Bag (free!)
Quilted Lattice Ascot

O is for...

Organization

If there were a D in my name, it would be for Disorganized. As it is, my acrostic looks like this:

Messy
In over my head
Cluttered
Heaps of laundry
Every dish we own is in the sink
Losing my keys in a purse full of receipts, tissues, and pens
Losing my mind
Eh, I'll clean tomorrow

One corner where I've managed to get my stuff sorted is my closet, because it was necessary in order to get ready for Ezra. All of my yarn is organized into bins, milk crates, and a set of plastic drawers in there. All of my straight needles are in a holder my in-laws got me years ago, all of my DPNs are in a purple tin pencil box, my crochet hooks are in empty mini M&M's tubes, and my circular needles are in a Ziploc until I come up with a less tangled way to manage them. I keep my small notions in Altoid tins.

Someday, I'd like to have a cozy little room just for knitting, sewing, and crafting, but for now things are working out in my closet.

How do you organize your hobby equipment?

Patterns I love that start with O:

Oink - flying piggy (free!)
Onodrim - fingerless gloves with a lace and cable leaf-motif
Old Shale Shawl - (free!)
Owlings - I never jumped on the owl-motif or Fetching bandwagon, but together...
Olivia's Butterfly - child-sized crochet cloche, easy to size up or down (free!)

N is for . . .

Nothing much to say, so let's skip straight to the links!

Nennir - you know I love all things Celtic, and I am coming around on cowls. The only thing holding me back from making this elaborately cabled beauty is my search for the perfect green yarn (the pattern is free!)

Newborn Guinea Pigs - a whimsical bit of crochet that would take very little time or yarn. (Free!)

Not-so-tiny Slippers - a scaled-up version of a baby slippers pattern. I am obsessed with collecting Mary Jane style slipper patterns (and shoes, for that matter)

Norma - a stunning afghan with lace and cables and the center-out construction that I prefer. I love the bold red-orange color of the model project, and if I ever have a little yarn money to spend I will make this in Dream in Color Classy. (Free pattern!)

You don't think of N as being a tricky letter, but oddly enough...

H is for . . .

Hats.

In spite of all my dishcloth output this year, the item that comes off my needles the most frequently is a hat.  Hats have many advantages - they are small, portable, there's only one of them (no second sock syndrome), there are usually only two ends to weave in (only one if you work that first end in as you go), there's only about six to eight inches of slog before you start rapidly decreasing and poof, you have a hat.  Hats can be made flat when you're a beginner, but I highly recommend learning to knit in the round as soon as possible because ZOOM! You weave in that last end and you are done, no seaming!

If you crochet it, you can have a hat in a couple hours,
great when you need a last minute costume

Baby hats are extremely satisfying to knit.  Unless you're intentionally making preemie hats, my advice is to aim big; babies grow quickly, and wrestling a slightly too small hat onto a head with a wobbly neck is not especially fun.  Either way, baby hats take very little time, are adorable, and can be donated to great causes.

A month's work worth of baby hats

You may have heard of the Boyfriend Sweater Curse, but it doesn't apply to hats as far as I know.  However, a boyfriend may lose a hat you made for him, which is frustrating when you haven't had a chance to take a picture of it yet.

I married him anyway

Hats rarely require more than one skein of yarn, so they're a great place to use a special skein of expensive yarn, or to stash-bust that skein of yarn that you have no idea where it came from, what it is, or where to get more.

Truth be told I don't even know where this hat is anymore

Hat patterns that I love:

Bloody Stupid Johnson - a Discworld tribute (free!)
Anthropologie-inspired Bohemian slouch hat
Twizzler - crochet (free!)
Rue du Collège
Star-crossed Slouchy Beret (free!)
Guernsey Potato Peel hat - great fair-isle (free!)
Koolhaas - epic travelling cables

C is for...

Christ is risen!

(or, Catching up on my missed letter)

Philippians 3:10-12 

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Crocheted Cross Bookmark.

I'm not sure how I feel about this next quote from the inestimable C.S. Lewis; I was raised to believe that the 'merely festal character' of Easter was at least sacrilegious and at worst nearly blasphemous - no Easter bunny darkened our door and it was years before I could regard a jelly bean without feelings of misgiving. Now that I have children of my own, with a husband who had all the trappings of the holiday from sunrise service to Easter basket, I'm torn.

C.S. Lewis

There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.’ 

This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. 

And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.” 

I hope to be able to guide my boys to always put the spiritual first, without having to make an anathema of Cadbury Creme Eggs.

D is for...

Dishcloth

(or, Drat, I fell asleep as soon as I got home yesterday (around 6:30) and didn't post a C entry.)

I'm 13 weeks into this 52 Weeks of Free Dishcloths adventure, and so far I've finished
16 dishcloths, one potholder, and a scrubby.

Scrubby

The narrow drawer next to the sink where I keep such things is filling up very pleasantly.

I've come a long way from my spiritual membership in I'd Rather Poke Myself in the Eye with a Dpn than Knit a Dishcloth. I still sympathise with them; they have many valid points. Dishcloths do deteriorate quickly, and spending precious knitting time making something that will be used to scrub the gunk out of the microwave can seem sacrilegious.

 I was firmly of that mindset, until someone sent me a Tribble in a swap, and I used it one day to scrub something firmly burnt onto the stove, and it worked so darn well that I finally saw the light and went on a small dishcloth/scrubby spree. They do take up precious knitting time, though, and they don't look at all impressive on your Ravelry notebook, so I gave it up again in favor of hats and mittens and fingerless gloves and a myriad of other more respectable projects, until I got into a miserable knitting slump where even the sight of a knitting needle made me queasy (being pregnant had a bit to do with it). There's nothing like a little instant gratification to get you out of a dark place like that, and dishcloths are about as instant as you can get without straying into crochet. You can easily make one or more every week...

So my dishcloth drawer is filling up. It's at a perfect height for Silas to get into, so he can mop up his own inevitable spills, which he does with great enthusiasm.

Couldn't find the scrubbing pic, so here he is loading the dishwasher

When he was sick this week, I went to that drawer to find a cloth to sponge his feverish brow, and found a heart-shaped dishcloth to make him smile. There are reasons to knit dishcloths.

The tribble

Patterns I love that start with D:

Double-breasted Bunny Suit

Drop-stitch Cowl - instant gratification of the super-bulky variety (free!)

Dwarven Battle Bonnet

Duck - absurdly cute baby booties (free!)

Doctor Who scarf (free!)

Danish Hearts - crochet (free!)

Doily-style Dishcloth - my first dishcloth (free!)

Weekly Dishcloth: Two for One Special

I consider myself a knitter who also crochets, though there are times that I find myself feeling more like a crocheter who also knits, because once you start crocheting you get so much done so fast that it can be hard to look back.  It's so fast, so forgiving, so darn easy to work in the ends as you go . . . There's something about knitting that always brings me back to being a knitter, but you won't find me looking down on crochet.  It produces results.

Granny's Rainbow Dishcloth, by Beth Major
Peaches & Creme, Bright Orange, Forest Green, Bright Blue, and Black Currant; Sugar'n Cream, Red and Yellow

It calls itself a dishcloth, and I put a bar of soap in the frame to try and convince myself that it is, but in the end I stuck in the drawer with my coasters and trivets.  It's just a little small.  The pattern calls for seven shades of DK, and it turns out that six shades of worsted will not match its dimensions.  I might have tried going up a hook size or two, but the H was handy and granny squares go so fast that I was done before I had a chance to change my mind.  I was using the yarn I had on hand, but if I had my druthers I'd have gone with a brighter green and a more assertive yellow.

Diagonal Cloth, by Beth Major
Knit Picks Cotlin, Clementine and Canary

This dishcloth . . . meh.  The pattern was meh, the colors were meh, the end result; meh.  It was also a pain in the neck to get square, I ripped back at least twice and for an extremely straightforward dc dishcloth that's ridiculous.  Wasn't really worth the effort, but it does work up fast if you don't make any mistakes.  Meh, it'll clean something.

If nothing else I'm at least pleased to be catching myself up to the Knit Picks 52 in '15 list.  I've cast on the Ice Crystal dishcloth, which should take me just short of forever because I've decided to experiment with double knitting, because I'd rather deal with that insane level of fiddliness instead of the insane level of fiddliness that is trying to work fair-isle flat. Because I'm just insane.  Nothing new there.

Wearin' of the Green

I needed something green to wear to work to celebrate the wee bit of Irish in my blood and to avoid any potential pinches, so I whipped up a quick shamrock in about fifteen minutes, including time to hunt down a safety pin.

The pattern is for a garland, but a single motif makes a dandy pin.

I was in a dishcloth swap, so I made a thematic dishcloth and potholder:

I plan to make duplicates for my own enjoyment; these were both delightful to make and so cheerfully seasonal.

A Year of Dishcloths

Oh, Knit Picks, what have you done to me?

I was vaguely aware last year that Knit Picks was posting a dishcloth pattern every week, but since my awareness didn't start until, oh, August-ish, I wasn't really piqued by the idea.  When I got the newsletter last week, however, I thought, "Hey, I could knit a dishcloth every week, use up my cotton stash, have an excuse to buy more cotton, and have a whole bunch of cute dishcloths!"

Silly me, I thought it would be a minor detour that wouldn't detract much from my knitting time nor put the rest of my projects completely on hold...

Week 1:

Snowbobbles by Gillian Grimm
Peaches and Creme, Hippi

I have a whole cone in this colorway, and I was tickled by how neatly the colors lined up as I was knitting it.  The bobbles, while providing a good scrubbing surface and plenty of visual and knitting interest, mean that it takes five times as long to make this dishcloth.

Week 2:

Lizard Ridge by Laura Aylor
Peaches and Creme, Bright Blue and Tropical Sea

This is a terrible picture

This is not the actual pattern from the Knit Picks sequence; that can be found here. I fully intend to make that one once I can procure the yarn for it, but in the meantime, I opted to make something out of my Ravelry queue. The short-rows, like the bobbles, mean lots of turning and thus a longer time commitment. Also, my failure to read the pattern through led me to miss the direction to offset the ripples, so I had to rip back most of it and start over.

Week 3:

Market Day Dishcloth by Marjorie Dussaud
Peaches and Creme, Psychedelic

Now here is an ideal dishcloth, whipped up quickly even though I had to tink back several times due to not reading the directions because I assumed I knew what was coming next. Once again, pride goeth before a frog.

Week 4:

Textured Stripes Dishcloth by Kiel Lemon
Peaches and Creme, Juanita Rose

Another detour from the schedule. Knit Picks pattern of the week here, I plan to make it, too, but not until I get the yarn, as I didn't care for how it was working up in worsted cotton. I tried three other patterns before ultimately settling on this one. It turns out that I really dislike mindless crochet. The results are a nice, sturdy washcloth, but oy, it was a schlep getting there.

So stay tuned for more dishcloths - now that I'm caught up I hope to post one every week and bring some semblance of regularity to this much neglected blog, but we all know how likely that is.

Catching up on the FOs Friday

Here's to mad one-handed typing skills, brought to you by one of my most recent and highly anticipated FOs:

Ezra Lee, born November 26th, a couple days late as far as the due date and a couple weeks later than everyone expected based on my rate of dilation, but this child won't be rushed on anything.  He was 8 lbs, 10 oz, 21 and 3/4" long, perfectly healthy other than a mild case of jaundice (nothing that a little sunbathing at home in the warm sunny windows won't take care of, I have been reassured), and to my own particular glee, he has my hair:

It may well lighten up as he gets older, but I hope not.  

Of course, he needed a stocking.

I used the same Mason-Dixon Knitting: Outside the Lines pattern that I used for Silas' stocking, and just reversed the red and green .  My fair-isle was much looser this time, making those portions ever so slightly larger than the plain stockinette, which is annoying, but not so much so as to tempt me towards trying to steam-block RHSS.

I also made a couple of headband style earwarmers.

Both are made using the Morning Walk Headband Earwarmer pattern with a few mods.  For the fuchsia band I used bulky weight yarn (Malabrigo Chunky in Fucsia - absolutely delicious) instead of the super bulky that the pattern calls for, which turned out fine as far as gauge went, but I forgot to allow for my gigantic noggin and blithely made it to the length in the pattern.  So now my mom has a spiffy new headband earwarmer.  What is family for but to provide us with a variety of body types and sizes so that when things don't fit us they don't go to waste?  The other mod in Fuchsia's case is that I swapped out the flower in the pattern for the more striking Crochet Picot Flower.  I like picots.

The festive headband is made in Wool-Ease Thick and Quick (color Oatmeal), which while not as buttery soft and dreamy to work with as the Malabrigo, is cozy and warm, and this time I added an inch and half to the length of the piece so it actually stays over my ears.  I was tickled by the idea of a very Christmas-y earwarmer, so I subbed in some holly for this one, using the Holly Bookmark pattern, obviously omitting the bookmark chain and replacing the thread called for with a double strand of RHSS.

Finally (and it only took two years), I finished this little elf ornament from Knit Picks.

The red and white are Sockenwolle, the face and hands are a double strand of Alpaca with a Twist Fino, and the body and feet are Lane Cervinia Forever Jacquard.  I went with jingle bells instead of pompoms, because teensy pompoms were more than I could manage.

I also made a couple of Dorset buttons for a swap, based on directions from Jane Austen Knits Fall 2013, this tutorial, and a little improvisation.  And beads.  If there's an option to add beads, I will always opt for that.  The swap was a simple ornament swap (my partner went a leeeetle overboard and sent me not only an ornament, but also cookies, tea, cocoa, coloring books . . .) with a Jane Austen theme.  Dorset is where Delaford is located in "Sense and Sensibility," so the button idea seemed appropriate.  Finding a ring big enough for the ornament I had in mind was trickier than I expected, though I have since discovered that there are places online that supply exactly what I was looking for, and I ended up using a 2" welded ring that I finally located at the local hardware store.  You can't beat the hardware store for those odd items that you only need one or two of without having to buy a whole package of whatever.  Just need four drywall screws?  You buy just four, and they put them in a cute little brown paper sack that makes you feel like you just left Olsen's Store in Plum Creek.  If only they carried stick candy (which can be had around here at the local apple orchard, which is awesome and made Silas the happiest two year old in September, I can tell you).  The yarn is the same Sockenwolle that I used for the elf ornament, and the beads are size 6/0 (E) glass seed beads, also from my stash.  The button sized button was made from a Boye stitch marker and size 10 crochet thread.  The trickiest thing about making the buttons is figuring out how to hide the ends.

   

Bits and pieces

Ryan introduced Silas to Pokemon today.  It was unnerving.  Silas rarely 'watches' TV so much as he occasionally glances at the screen and shouts whatever noun appears for the few seconds that he's looking at it; "Elmo!" "Monkey!"  "Dog!"  "Train!"  However, from the second the episode started playing Silas was glued to the screen, eventually whispering "Pikachu" with each appearance of the character.  At the end of the episode, this being Netflix, the next episode automatically started playing, but I grabbed the remote and shut it off.

"That's enough for one day," I said.

"Why?" Ryan whinged.

"Look at your son!" I said with a gesture towards our progeny.  "It's only been half an hour but he already has the zonked out expression of a child who is watching too much TV!"

Ryan's response to that was a smirk of all-knowing condescension, as he doubtless remembered how much TV he watched as a child, which in no way affected his activity levels or variety of interests.

"Silas," I prodded, "Do you want to go color?"

"No."

"Do you want to go outside?" I upped the ante.

"No."  He paused, clearly considering what it was he did want.  "Pikachu!"

I glared daggers at Ryan, who laughed but with an embarrassed expression that suggested he realized the implications of what had just happened.

I am happy to report that a minute or two later it dawned on Silas that he had been given implicit permission to go outside and we had to chase him down to put shoes and a clean diaper on him before he escaped (he's becoming terrifyingly good at opening the front door without assistance), but the incident remains peculiar.

On the knitting side of life, I'm working on a pair of socks for a travelling sock swap, and therefore there can be no pictures without spoiling the surprise for the recipient, but I will say this - a smooth join from cable to needle is really critical to success with Magic Loop, otherwise it's a hair-rending experience that makes me dread working on the project.  Addi Turbos = excellent in this regard.  Knitter's Pride Dreamz = surprisingly and disappointingly less so.  I love my Knitter's Pride needles, but the size 1 I bought for this project is snagging just enough to set my teeth on edge and drive me to other pursuits that I can't talk about because they're for a swap too . . .

There was a bit of crochet, though!

I apologize for the terrible, low-light picture; it was taken at the last minute with my phone around midnight, because it was a very last minute project finished around midnight, because for some reason it didn't occur to me until two days before she retired that my lovely coworker Julie would really, really appreciate having something handmade by me.  I sacrificed a skein and a quarter of my precious Lion Brand Amazing yarn (colorway "Pink Sands"), mainly because except for the odd pale olive drab portions, the colors were entirely her, and slightly because I knew the long color repeats would be an easy way to get the most bang for the time I had to spend on it.  The pattern was a fairly easy pick, too - crochet = fast, crochet flowers = pretty and entirely to the taste of the woman I was crocheting for, pattern that looks complicated while in fact being mindlessly simple (without being mindlessly boring) = best bang for time available, and this pattern in particular = extremely well suited to yarns with long color repeats.  She absolutely adored it, and we both enjoyed showing it off to everyone we thought would have the inclination to ooh and awww over the pretty handmade.  I do wish the thought had occurred to me, say, months ago when she announced she would be retiring in October, so that I could have invested more time and money and perhaps knitted her a shawl, but this scarf was made with all my love and good wishes, and that's what I really wanted to give her.  She may not ever know how loathe I was to part with the yarn, but she knows I was thinking of her when I chose it for this project, because I know she loves pink and yellow and blue and color in general, and I hope when she wears it she remembers the many conversations we had about clothes and color (and Silas and babies and recipes and so many other things), and that she feels fabulous because the woman loves to put together a great outfit!

Oh dear

Poor neglected little blog.  Have you missed me?  I've missed you, though I haven't much to say.

I've been busy throwing my time away with swaps.  Stalking and crafting and brainstorming are just sucking my brain dry, and all the energy I have left is for work.  At work I create myriads of lists of swap-possibilities.  I just want to get some mail - is that so bad?

Before swaps, there were purple baby hats.

Those are the ten purple baby hats that I knitted and crocheted for the Period of Purple Crying Click-Along at the Rose Tree Fiber Shop in Ames.  I was a purple-hat-making machine!  Unfortunately, not a picture-taking machine, but there's only so much you can do with limited skills and bad lighting.

Hat the first:

The Little Knight Hat, right off the Click-Along website.  Twisted rib, somewhat absurdly tight gauge (fault mine), tiny hat.  Red Heart Super Saver, "Lavender" colorway.  Garnered lots of "Awwwww!"s.

Hat the second:

The plum or eggplant hat, better known as the Berry Baby Hat.  This one came out somewhat more on the oversized size.  I used RHSS, "Amethyst" and "Spring Green"

Hat the third:

Luuk hat the first.  Verrrry tiny.  Very mindless knitting.  RHSS "Lavender"

Hat the fourth:

 . . . had a model!  Gabriella Rose, daughter of good friends Carlin and Angel.  About six weeks old.  Ridiculous amount of hair.  Looked a bit like Miss Cleo in this wee little crocheted butterfly beanie - Olivia's Butterfly.  It's meant to be worn with the butterfly over one eyebrow for a jaunty, cloche-like look, but with the butterfly centered over the forehead, it looks like a wee turban, especially on a dark-haired little gypsy babe.  Red Heart Sport, "Purple."  I left off a few increases and rows to make it infant-sized, came out very tiny indeed.

Hat the fifth:

Rosa Villosa.  I went out on a limb for this one after all that easy crochet and used sock yarn for this one.  Lion Brand Sock-Ease, "Grape Soda" colorway, to be precise.  The stem is in Zitron Trekking XXL, "Wicked Green."  This hat was too adorable for words, and worked up much more quickly than I expected given the much finer yarn and tiny little needles.

Hat the sixth:

Luuk hat the second.  After a failed first attempt, finally managed to read the directions correctly and make the 0-3 month size instead of the newborn size (which on my needles turns out more of a preemie size).  RHSS, "Amethyst"


Hat the seventh:

Ashen hat.  Love the moss-stitch brim.  Another one in RHSS "Lavender."

Hat the eighth:

Otis Baby Hat.  RHSS "Lavender" again.  I had a lot of false starts with this one - I think ribbing would have worked better for the brim than the garter stitch did - even using smaller needles for the brim didn't solve the warping issue that you can kind of see here.  I love the big fat cables, though.

Hat the ninth:

One more quick crocheted hat, Flower Hat/Photo Prop, in Red Heart Sport, "Purple," and Caron Simply Soft Brites, "Limelight."  Very cute, came out enormous.

Hat the tenth:

Baby Tart.  This one took the longest - I started it shortly after I began the first hat, and finished it at the Click-Along.  The bobbles were murder - all that purling!  It went much more smoothly once I slowed down and concentrated on knitting loosely.  Unspeakably adorable result, sadly difficult to get a good picture of.  Caron Simply soft in "Plum Perfect" and "Bone."