Warm And Fuzzies

So, after much ado, I finally finished Veronik Avery's Short-Row-Hat, which appeared as a web exclusive on the Interweave website a couple years back. I missed this pattern when it first appeared (I was birthin' a baby around that time), but discovered it recently when puttering around on Ravelry. It's such a lovely knit and it was nice to truly challenge myself with something I'd never really tried before. This one's been sitting idle for a few weeks (damn that finishing), but after seeing Wendy's recently finished hat, I decided to finish this guy off. Here are the specs:

Short-Row Hat by Veronik Avery (from Interweave webknits)
Yarn: Ami-Ami Faith in red/black/white/camel
Needle: U.S. #7 straight
Mods: I found the finishing rather wonky, so rather than picking up 32 stitches at the end to close the crown, I picked up about 14 and knit two together until I was down to three stitches for the i-cord.


I love this hat. It was hard for me to get the hang of it, but after frogging the first section about three times, I just went for it. I'm not convinced that I got it totally right (I always had a few stray stitches that I had to fudge), but it looks right, and that's what matters. In a rare move on my part, I actually used the suggested yarn, which I had to mail order. Because the way the colours play out is so unique, I thought this was a good choice and while my colourway is a lot more varied than the one used in the sample photo, I think it worked pretty well. I think this would work well in Noro too. Wendy used Silk Garden and while she lamented that her hat turned out pretty big, even with the suggested yarn, mine turned out plenty big and I have a really large head. All in all a very successful project. Hooray!

Breathe, Remember To Breathe

It's been a bit of a tough go in these parts over the last couple of weeks. Between ultrasounds, funerals, potty accidents, news of illness among family members, taking on too much work, gardens to put down for the winter, trips to plan and that damn Halloween costume to finish, I'm spent. Aaron and Ruby very graciously spent much of the weekend out of the house (that Aaron is good for a long father/daughter bike ride by the river when I need some solitude), so I decided to work on something that would take my mind off all that other stuff.

I started in on Veronik Avery's Short-Row Hat, which is an Interweave web pattern that I think came out a couple of years ago (if there was a huge blogger frenzy over this one, I would have missed it, since I would have been having Ruby around the time of its release). This sucker really requires the aforementioned solitude -- I initially cast on during Wednesday's episode of America's Next Top Model. Big mistake. In fact, I cast on for this thing no fewer than four times before finally getting the hang of it. Even then, I made a few flubs, but I think I was able to fudge it well enough that it didn't throw the pattern off too much. I'll talk more about the pattern when I finish it, which could be years from now, seeing as I'll need at least another hour or two of responsibility-free solitude to get it done.


In other news, check out the doll that Leena brought Ruby back from NYC. I forget the series' name (Ruby tore the tag off faster than you would believe), but she's made by Corolle. We call her Susan. I love her.