I Am Un-Hatted

I lost faith in my alteration to Odessa and pulled it out today to start over. Lame, I know, but it had to be done, and anyway the yarn is so soft that it's even a pleasure to frog it. So I'll be re-casting on shortly, and hopefully have a hat by the end of the weekend. I'm taking advantage of the first week of school as the time when there isn't really any work to do yet, and knitting up a storm.

In the mean time I'm looking at a couple of other unfinished pieces and feeling like I should work on them, but to be honest I'm having project fatigue. One piece is a sweater with intarsia birds on it, which I like because it's going to look very Urban Outfitters when I'm done, but right now I'm in the very tedious stockinette body phase, and it's just boring the pants off me. The other project is a fair-isle scarf, which I like because the yarn has a little mohair in it for picture-perfect colorwork (the fibers cling together and boing, fantastic fair-isle), but I'm just feeling kind of bored with the whole thing. Usually I'm a really faithful project monogamist, but right now I'm really in the mood for something else.

I'm feeling something small and fiddly; if I were a sock knitter I'd be all over Bayerische (because nothing brings me more joy than cabling), but I have yet to be enchanted by the sock pixies. I think it's because I'm always losing socks and the ones I don't lose wind up stank anyway. Besides, I'm in college and I just don't have the time or patience to hand-wash some hand-made socks, no matter how lush. So perhaps some cabled gloves are in the offing instead. I've got some lovely variegated sock yarn from Knitpicks (back when Memories came in that Flower Child colorway, cream with lime, raspberry and apricot. Mmm... apricot) that could work out nicely with a honeycomb cable on the back of the hand. Or maybe I'll make myself another hat or something. Either way, I'm ready for something different.

Variegated Odessa Hat

I just got some truly luscious yarn from Stitch Therapy in Park Slope, and I'm using it to make my very own Odessa Hat. I'm doing it without the beads, and I had to do some gauge adjustments because the yarn (whose name I forget) is more of a light worsted than a DK. I'm getting about 5.5 stitches per inch (on the larger needles... the pattern wasn't specific as to whether the given gauge is for the 6's or the 4's), and so with a little math I cast on 90 instead of 110 stitches. I'm hoping it works out okay.

Anyway, on to the good stuff:

Here's the yarn itself, in all its glory. The raspberry-ruby with the olive and then the little shots of yellow is just beautiful, and it is so f-ing soft!
Here's the hat as it stands, about 3" done, about three more to go before decreasing.

And here's a little close-up of the stitch pattern. I really like how it's coming out - I wanted a pattern with some texture, but with a variegated yarn it's hard to find a texture that doesn't overwhelm the colors of the yarn itself. I think this is a good balance.

Yay! I love making hats. I know a lot of people who are wild about socks as instant-gratification knitting, but for me it's all about hats. They only take a few days and then -bam- new hat. Who doesn't love that?

Here At Last

(For anyone reading this:)

Welcome all to my brand new knitting blog. I'm a college student just starting my senior thesis, and so I sense that knitting for sanity maintenance is going to become even more important in the coming months. I'm also hoping to bust out with some original patterns in the coming months, so keep your eyes open. In the mean time, there'll be works-in-progress and pictures to enjoy. So... enjoy!