Why Is It That...

...for someone who doesn't care to knit with cotton because it hurts my hands I have managed to accumulate 25 balls of kitchen cotton. Yes, I can count - there are less than 25 here - but I found more after I took this picture. Know any good washcloth patterns? Please pass them on - I like ones that are reversible and no intarsia involved...



Why was I going through my yarn? Well, the dreaded packing has begun. I have three 18-gallon tubs of wool, a smaller tote-able tub of wool, and an ottoman with storage within... with, um, more yarn. Andrew, to his credit, did not say a single word when I started hauling this out of the closet of mystery. My husband is a saint. Mom, there is another box of yarn coming your way.

In the midst of all of this I did manager to finish two small things for Willow. One is a chullo-hat pattern with a hole in the back for her ponytail. I didn't use a pattern for this - just sort of made it up as I went along. The yarn is Malabrigo Chunky stuff I bought at Handpainted Yarn last year some time. I think the colourway is Paris Night, but don't quote me on it.



My original thought was to just make a normal toque-type hat for her, but when that part of that hat was done and she tried it on, I realized it was much too short on her head, so I added the ear flaps. I simply marked on either side of her head with stitch markers how wide the ear flaps needed to be to cover her ears and then some, then did single crochet rows until I ran out of yarn. It has a very rustic look to it - I am thinking of adding a crocheted edging in a different colour just to make the front and back a bit deeper on her head.



This lucky girl also scored herself a Calorimetry this week:



She admired mine greatly and wanted to claim it like she did the Nippertail hat but I put my foot down. After she and I had a screaming match at each other last night (me hormonally charged, she nap-less), I put her to bed and started knitting her the Calorimetry. It's a little snug on her - I think I am going to re-position the button to give it a bit more ease. Willow's Calorimetry is knit from TLC Essentials in the Surf N Turf colourway. I love how the aqua and browns move together here, and there is still plenty left on the skein, so I will undoubtedly get a Dulaan hat or two out of the remaining yarn. To size this down I only cast on 80 stitches on size 6 needles, and did 10 repeats of row 5 and 12 repeats of row 7. I may fudge this a bit and add an inch or two on each end as an afterthought to extend the band if Willow complains about it being too tight.

Yeah... the model was more interested in watching Charlie and Lola...