Minions (who do my bidding) and Followers (who do not)

About Me

My photo
Mama, wife, knitter, blogger, spinner, wannabe something or other. That's enough, right?

Thursday, May 10, 2012

FO Friday

Yes, I'm a pathological liar.



I actually finished something! It's about time, too. I was starting to think that I'd never finish anything and that all my WIPs were forever going to remain WIPs and that my plans were just never going to come to fruition (who knows, that could still happen).

Anyway, I have a lovely finished object for your viewing pleasure :)

On Monday night...well, Tuesday morning, actually........whatever. Anyway, I finished my Habitat Hat!

Look! It's a hat and it's blocking!

Pattern: Habitat by Jared Flood
Timeframe: started April 10, 2012; finished May 8, 2012
Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in Nest
Needles: US #7 16" circular, US #8 16" circular, US #7 DPNs (I couldn't find my #8s)
Size: Small size in stitches but I did the larger size in charts (which makes sense if you have the pattern)
Modifications: Just what I said in the "size" section. I CO the # of stitches for the small size but I followed the directions for the larger size. The result was that I got a hat that covered my ears but wasn't so wide that it would blow off during Wisconsin winters.


I'm glad to have this hat finished. Not because it's cold or anything but because I've been in a major knitting slump where projects just seem to go on and on forever and nothing ever seems to get finished. Prior to finishing this hat on Tuesday, I hadn't finished a project since March 5, 2012. It was getting old and I wanted to knit less and less as a result.

The pattern was incredibly fiddly. I love how cables turn out and it's not that I mind doing them...but I'm terrible with chart reading and I had to keep checking the stitch key to make sure I didn't cross my cables the wrong way (I may have done a couple incorrectly here and there). I'm also a chicken about doing cables without cable needles. I'm not good at fixing mistakes so if one of those stitches decided to travel downwards, I would have frogged the whole thing and started over. However, I do love how this hat came out and it might be one that I make again.

The yarn, on the other hand, was very.......rustic. I don't know how else to explain it. It has the feel of handspun but the evenness that is commercially produced yarn. I kept finding little bits of debris in the yarn that had to be picked out (looked like hay, mostly). I wasn't sure about it, either. Shelter is kind of difficult to find around here and I won the skein at our last Knitters' Guild meeting of 2011 (Jared Flood was one of our speakers last year). With the modifications, I wasn't sure if I was going to have enough yarn. The pattern called for 120 yards of worsted weight. Shelter comes in skeins of 140 yards. As I started getting closer and closer to the top, I started having a minor panic attack because that yarn was running very low, very quickly and I was knitting faster and faster. When it was all said and done, I wound up having maybe 5 yards left...maybe. Talk about cutting it close. I do love how it turned out after blocking, by the way...

But, now that it's finished....well, I'm debating between trying to finish up the WIPs that I've had or if I want to start something new. Part of me wants to start something new immediately and part of me thinks I should spend some time finishing up at least one more WIP before I go starting something new. I'm kind of torn. The next closest-to-being-finished item is either my Pine Forest Baby Blanket or Little Man's Giraffe. Admittedly, the giraffe will probably take less time but it's more fiddly than the blanket. I have to make all the little "parts" and then sew them onto the toy. The big parts of the giraffe are done (head, body, and legs). All I have left to do are make the spots, tail, horns, and hair and attach all of them as well as the ears, which are finished, and then embroider the face. It honestly isn't hard...just fiddly. But, the blanket is on a schedule. I need that finished, washed, blocked, photographed, wrapped, and shipped off to Maryland before July 1st (so it has time to get there before the baby comes on July 9th - yes, she's having a scheduled c-section). So.........I think I should probably do the blanket first. Then there's my version of Hermione's Everyday Socks that I have going. I'm currently on the heel of the first sock. For some reason, my mind equates one sock with a finished object, even though the whole project is not actually finished. I keep wanting to work on those instead of either the blanket or the giraffe...

And then there's deciding what to make next. I'm thinking I should get a start on Sweet Girl's Hippo (I have all the yarn wound and ready to go; I even know where the pattern is located)...but there are so many tempting patterns in my Self-Imposed Year of Projects. Husband has also been kind of harping on me about the Hippo. Sweet Girl picked it out last summer and I haven't done it yet.......I should really probably do that.

Anyone have any thoughts about that?





The news on Husband's job front is this: we won't know anything until probably next Friday (May 18, 2012). They have interviewed two more candidates this week (and maybe into early next week) and then they need to decide. Husband did talk to the recruiter on Wednesday afternoon and they said that he could fit in very well, he's a little short on knowledge of software development and some terminology, and that he's very humble about his abilities. The recruiter told him that many of the people they interview from the Midwest wind up having this superiority complex when they get hired. They didn't see that with Husband. This is a good thing. The recruiter went on to say that everyone he's talked to about Husband has said they should hire him. So.....keep the job mojo coming!

Another week of waiting on pins and needles. *sigh*

Here are some recent photos of Little Man....he's had another haircut, too.

Ima grab the phone, Mama!

I run around with a drum on my head. Running around with drums on your head is cool.

Handspun mohair? Ima wear it like a scarf.

I do like my hat, Mama.....just not all the time when you want me to!

For more FO Friday fun, visit Tami's Blog :)

3 comments:

  1. Gorgeous hat, it looks really good! And I would say finish the baby blanket if it has a deadline, frantic knitting is never fun.

    And much job mojo still, I hope it goes ok!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love how you describe your knitting dilemma. I laughed to myself as I was reading it because that's exactly what I do. In my mind I knit much faster and again in my mind my projects take a lot less time.
    I say go with the baby blanket. There is nothing like a deadline to motivate.
    Your little guy is Ahdorable!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ahhhhh, this is the Habitat hat you were referring to. Wow, that is alot of cables. It looks great and really warm!

    My little man tries to grab the phone or camera when I'm taking pictures, too. Those are some of my favorites pictures :)

    ReplyDelete