Many Projects, Happy Knitting

....Finished my Ice Queen cowl....it is an easier knit than it appears....which is brilliant....with stellar results IMO....it was my first time knitting with lace weight yarn which took a little getting used to....it's really, really thin yarn....thin yarn, tiny needles, big hands = slowish knitting....still it was accomplished, beads and all in not too much time....
....this pattern only takes one ball of Rowan Kidsilk Haze....i had to go down 2 needle sizes to get gauge....and let me say, Kidsilk Haze DOES NOT frog, or rip or any other version of backing out of what has been knitted....so there are a couple or three mistakes in the piece, but i'm probably the only one who will notice....☺
....the pink beads worked great with the green yarn....i almost left the pink perle cotton i used for the provisional cast-on in place....but, it was a leetle too 1990 and i have tons of beads so i went ahead with the Beaded Picot Bind-off....

Ice Queen Bahama Dreams

....back in August i knitted two Vivian Hats....they've been sitting on my desk waiting for me to full, and then embellish, them.....they have a very specific Mad Hatter/Mary Poppins-ish shape....it took me awhile to decide which items to use to block them on, knowing that would determine the final shape....i wanted them to fit my extra large cranium....as they were blocking on some items from around the kitchen DS said "Mom, why did you knit a birthday cake"....clue number one that they were not going to turn out with the curve in the middle i was hoping for....
....we have quite a few fans going at our house....including one very large industrial type on in the corner of the dining room....perfect for getting your fulled item to dry swiftly actually....they were dry in no time....and i have ideas for embellishing them....but i'm not in love with them....DS to the rescue....i was telling him about how they are supposed to look after you shape them and he suggested that because i had to block them so big that distorted the proportion of the brim to the rest of the hat....he gave the example of imagining Andre the Giant wearing a ball cap in which the cap itself had been increased in size to fit his head, but the bill had remained the original size making it seem disproportionately small in relation to the overall size of the hat....Brilliant!....

Bon Vivant

Joie de Vivre

....actually looking at the hats now that i've taken photos of them they don't seem that bad....the hat in the first photo is knitted according to the pattern....the hat in the second photo is modified....
....i have plenty of wool to knit more hats....it is a very easy, quick knit....
....haven't cast-on the Ashford Shawl yet, but one of my Ravelry friends found an excellent long shrug with dolman sleeves called Cocoon that i have wool for so i sprung for the pattern....
....still working on Wright's Aran Poncho, the Linen Stitch Scarf that i started with some sock yarns i've had for quite some time....which is actually going to become one of those long cowls that you can wrap around two or three times....a couple of pairs of fingerless gloves and 2 hats....
....whew!....sometimes an idea works out brilliantly, sometimes not....finding out which is always intriguing☺


Sally