Knitting and Knitting and Knitting - Oh my!

I realized that I promised a lot of updates, so I'd better get started.

First, one that I hadn't promised. I gave the baby dress to the expecting mother and she was thrilled with it. :) I told another coworker, who had been following my knitting progress that the mother loved it, and she said, "How could she NOT?! It is LOVELY and of heirloom quality to boot!" Aw, what a sweet thing to say!

A Baby Sweater with One Sleeve

Hey, that's significant progress! I went to a friend's knit-night on Monday and took this as my only project to work on. One sleeve was all I could handle, but it went in on the first try and I'm glad to be closer to done. Maybe I'll do the rest this weekend.

The Story of a Koigu Hat, Loved and FROGGED

I had a love affair with Koigu for a while. I'd go to the yarn store, be drawn, inexplicably, toward the Koigu. "I must have one. It must be mine," said the little voice in my head. And so the Koigu came home with me. I picked up a pattern for a koigu hat and designated one skein for this purpose. I wound my beautiful skein and took it with me on a business trip to Montreal. (You can read about in an entry called "By Request" on Feb 14, here.)

On the day I left, I bought a ticket for the airport shuttle and sat down to knit. I seem to recall that I was tired of working on the back of Mist, or maybe I needed to pay too much attention to shaping and was too worried about being late to have any attention left. So I decided to start on this koigu hat. It starts simply enough, four stitches on each needle, increase at the beginning and middle of each needle. Time passed. The bus didn't come. My koigu circle grew slowly larger and more beautiful.

When the bus did finally come and I did finally get to the airport, I'd reached the point where I needed to increase on every alternating row, and that was certainly going to require too much concentration. Especially since my plane had already left by the time I arrived at the airport. I put the koigu hat away.

(In this same evening, I somehow lost my boarding card and ticket somewhere between security and the gate, and almost didn't get on the plane. Which was going to Philadelphia (right on the way to Boston from Montreal, you'll note). I did get to Philadelphia, though, and at least I got a pretzel for my trouble; however, I was shocked to discover that you can't get a Tastykake anywhere in the Philly airport. If you can't get a Tastykake, what's the point of going to Philly?!)

The hat languished, untouched, for quite a while, but a week or so ago I decided to give it another go. I finished the alternating row increases and made a whole lotta seed stitch. And then I thought it seemed a little bit big, a little bit floppy. A little waste yarn confirmed my fears. I stuck on the ribbing and tried it on one more time.

How dorky do I look, huh?

Sure, it needs to be longer and cover my enormous forehead. But it's still quite loose and I didn't like the fit at all, so, RIP RIP RIP! out it came.

And here it is, all nice and pretty again, waiting for another day, smaller needles, and a better swatch. I'm a little worried that I'll never like this hat, but it was pretty quick to work up and I'll give it another go at another time.

Maybe that's enough storytelling for today and I'll save the others for tomorrow or Friday. And this way I can squeeze in a little knitting before bedtime. Perhaps I'll measure my swatches and cast on for Gyrid. Mmmm, silky wool...