One hat, two hat, green hat, blue hat

I've been knitting some hats, LittleD (didn't we say we were going to find him a new blog name? Hmmm) asked me to knit him one, and my dear friend Robin (hi Robin!) had sent me some beautiful blue and green yarn. So I found two patterns (because I can't knit just one!) and I got started. The first hat turned out to be too small for LittleD but I was hoping it would fit Buzz, rather than frog it and start over. And it does. Barely. So I started in on a 2nd, bigger one. Which might be a little big. But the boy's head will grow, right? Apparently I really really don't like to frog.

Oh, I forgot, the yarn & pattern info. I can't tell you the yarn because it doesn't have it's wrappers but it's a worsted weight variegated color yarn, and I'm pretty sure it's acrylic.

The base of the hats are this pattern: Maggie's Rags Tassled Hat
But instead of two points, I decided I wanted to try three, like this pattern: Iceland Printed Wool Baby Hat

So I followed the first pattern as written, or at least I thought I did, but when I was almost done and re-read it I realized I was doing the waffle stitch wrong - I somehow didn't process row 3 and 4, so I was just doing rows 1 and 2 - so instead of my knit-into stitches alternating their position, they lined up, making fatter lines. Which I like, so that was cool. But on hat #2 I did decide to try it the right way. Oh, and the first hat was a little too small to knit on circular needles, so I ended up needing to learn the two-circlulars thing, which worked out well, but I like the larger hat on one set better. I could do the two-circulars to make socks or something, but I am pretty sure I'd prefer the 3-4 dpns for that, having done that already.

Then, when I got to the end of the hat, instead of stitching it across into 2 points, I divided it into 3 and kitchener-stitched to 3 of the end of each point, then did the icord thingie as listed.

Both hats look chunkier in their pictures than mine turned out, despite using worsted weight yarn and the same size needles. On the 3-pointed picture I think it's because their hat was tinier yet. Anyway, I like how the hats are turning out, and fairly pleased with my combining of the two patterns.

So anyway, here are the two hats together, the finished and the half-done larger one. Note how differently the yarn lines up on the 2nd hat, it must be just the right circumference for the striping pattern. Funky.

one hat, two hat
green and blue hat,
this one is a little small
this one's in a big big car

Yeah, I really held up the blog entry an entire day to put all those pics together into an animated gif. Excellent use of my time? Perhaps not. That's Buzz in the little hat, enjoying it in the car on the long and bouncy ride back from Wisconsin. Which, for those of you who might not know, is pronounced Wis-GAHN-sin. Anyway, I hope that picture doesn't give anyone a seizure.

Holding up the blog entry wouldn't normally be a good deal, but yesterday I was flying high on paranoia, having read my wonderful friend Face to the Sunshine's blog (isn't that a great blogging name?!) about occasionally cleaning up her links and how we shouldn't be offended if we got cut, and it struck fear in my heart, I was sure she was preparing me for getting cut. Which, really, is fine, because everyone should have the right to change their links as they see fit, I agree wholeheartedly with that. But still don't want to know I'm being cut, LOL. But today I see that I'm almost tenured there, LOL! So I'm safe. Now if I could just shake all the paranoia and anxiety clouding my interpretation of the rest of the world, I'd be all set.

I still have something deep to blog about, but that'll have to wait, so the hats have their moment of glory.

as a side note: I want to make one of those little sidebar thingies that measures the progress of my knitting projects, but I really want to re-do the entire blog, and that's a big undertaking ... ramble, ramble ...

So ... back to LittleD, who originally requested the hat that started this post. What should we change his blog name to? It's the 50th anniversary of Sputnik's launch this week, should we change him to Sputnik? That would put him in space with The Grand Lunar, and he does barrel around like a frantically launched rocket sometimes ... what do you think? Does it fit? Or should I hold out for a better blog name?