a hat for me!

stayed up way too late last night finishing up this hat ... the pattern is the Adults-Only Kittyville hat from the first Stitch-N-Bitch, but I left off the ears and braided the cords instead of making an i-cord. I know how to make i-cords (did it on Mom's neckwarmer), but at 11:30 last night, I didn't really have the energy ... zzzzzzzz ...
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is of the impression that a hat is a better first project than a scarf because scarfs are just long and boring while hats are over quicker, plus allow you to learn new skills. Although I learned on scarves and completed three before I couldn't take it any more, I am way more enjoying my new foray into hats, socks and half-gloves for smallish quick projects. So far in my knitting life, I have not started a project just to put it away when I get distracted by something else for a long period of time (yes, my brown sweater is taking forever, but so far, I do keep going back to it!) but I must confess that there are two half-finished scarves sitting in my yarn bin that I can't bring myself to complete.
p.s. as I mentioned yesterday, the hat yarn is Lorna's Laces bittersweet worsted weight and I am making socks out of it too!!

my own personal "one with the jam"

Saturday Wes and I drove down to the Staples Center with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon in hand for the Kings game vs. the Nashville Predators. The coupon (and a low-attendance due to an afternoon game the same weekend as the LA Marathon and the Kings general suckyness) enabled us to get ice-level tickets behind the Kings home goal. From this vantage point we had a great view of seven of the nine goals scored in the game (6 from Nashville, yeah!) including two awesome goals from Paul Kariya to make my stalker trip complete and happy. I also realized that Peter Forsberg is one scary Swede when he's skating full speed towards his opponents goal. He already scared me, but seeing him from that angle brought new levels of terror.
I brought along Wes' second navy sock to work on during the 65 mile trip and made significant progress, I also knit on the way home and my 130 miles of knitting produced a too-tall top of sock. oops. When I sat down yesterday to do the heel and gusset, I realized I had knit an extra half-inch on the top of the sock. I have some more heel decreases left to do before I knit a jillion rounds for his huge foot, but I was anxious to move on to another project last night. I couldn't take any more of the plain blue on tiny (size 4) needles so I cast on Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted weight (color bittersweet) on two size 8 circulars to knit myself a hat with seed stitch edging and ear flaps ... soo cute. the color is the same I am making my second pair of socks out of too. I am almost to the decreases on the hat, so hopefully with a couple good nights of knitting tonight and tomorrow while Wes is at work (only FOUR more night shifts left!) I can get his socks and my hat done this week and get on to finish that second pair of socks too. I have half decided to shelve my brown sweater until after summer as it is getting warmer here and I have two other spring/summer sweaters I want to make. I checked out Wendy Bernard's blog this morning and I swear she lives here in town. I already thought she lived somewhere in the county due to comments about local places (Ronald Regan Library in Simi, Santa Barbara Zoo, pictures of the Ventura pier, etc) but in yesterday's post there was a picture of an AFY shopping bag full of yarn! I feel like a bit of a stalker realizing this (too much stalking for one weekend!), but mostly I am soo anxious to knit up my Sahara now. She had pictures of more finished Saharas from other knitters and I want mine! I already decided I am going to do the sleeveless style and have bought (more than) enough yarn to complete it. Now I just need to cast on and get started once I finish the socks and hats and more socks I have planned ... better do it soon or I will be shelving Sahara to go back to the brown hoodie in September!