Day late, dollar short

I made a hat for K for his birthday in November last year. As I was knitting it, I was fairly sure it was a bit too small, but I pressed on. It went pretty quickly, and I thought I might only need to rip back part of it and change where the decreases started.

In the end we decided it really was too small (the fabric was very dense - worsted weight on 4mm needles). But then Christmas happened, and a couple of other projects took priority. There has been one big project I've been working on all of this year, and I recently thought I had finished it, only to find that I had totally misjudged the border. What I naively hoped blocking would fix, was way too far off. Why do I always think knit stitches are longer than they are wide, when it is generally the other way around?


But that is not what we are talking about tonight. More on that failure later, once I have turned it into a success! (Don't worry, I took some 'failure' photos. It will be fun, eventually.)

I finally, *finally* redid the hat and it took almost no time at all. It is based on Stephen West's 'Westward' pattern, though I've dropped perhaps the most distinctive element of that pattern,  the band in Latvian braid. I actually like the pattern mixing vibe of this hat but it wasn't what I was looking for this time. I do want to try the Latvian braid though, and I'm toying with using the band form Westward as the starting point for a more slouchy hat for me.

The cable is worked over 120 stitches. After some trial and error, I found 96 stitches was about right for the ribbed band, after which I did a round with sufficient increases to start the cable pattern.

K hasn't tried it on yet. But I can report that when I try it on, it doesn't look as conehead shaped as it does here.

I'll find someone with a smaller head to wear the first one. Possibly a nephew.

Oh, and I really am a dollar short this week - I found out I have been underpaid for the past few weeks - they've made me more part-time than I actually am. I am sure it is just a minor clerical error which will be sorted out soon. I'd be just as happy to have the extra days at home though! Not feasible right now.

Tracing lazy circles in the sky

This is a pinwheel baby blanket for a new little friend. I had leftover Lincraft Bamboozle from this top, which had the perfect colours for this project. (I didn't measure it, but I did throw in a stunt hat for scale.)



There wasn't enough of it left though, and I thought about including stripes of a different colour - it comes in a plain red that would look good with this pink-orange combo - but I as I knit it, I decided it would be better kept simple.



The original yarn was bought years ago, and even though Lincraft still makes this colourway, it was almost certain that the dyelot of the new stuff i bought would be different, and would look different. It seemed really obvious to me that in the new yarn (the outer circles from about halfway) the pink/reddish colours were much darker and brighter, though the orange was the same. I don't think you can tell in these photos, and the knitting friends I showed it to didn't find it noticeable in real life either. I actually thought it looked fine anyway. I think you can get away with a lot in a circular blanket. It's not nearly as bad as your jumper changing colour halfway down!