K is for Knitscene

Why yes, that is me on page 5 of the new issue of Knitscene!! (If, someday, someone is reading this in the archives, it's the Winter/Spring 2010 issue.)


OK, not me per se, but it is certainly a fine picture of my Stitch Saver and the web addy to my Etsy store! YAY!


I sent IWK some samples of my Stitch Savers well over a year ago and they said they would put it on the "cool stuff" pages of Knitscene. I didn't think to ask which issue - hah! Just kidding! Again, I'm so happy to be in the mag it's ridiculous!



And, since I haven't posted any real knitting in awhile, let's talk about some knittin', shall we? So far, 2010 has been the Year of the Frog. In January, it seems everything I tried to knit got frogged for one reason or another. February's been better so maybe I just had the Month of the Frog and Year of the Frog is just me exaggerating (one can always hope, right?).


As always, my nemesis The Hat got me again...


I tried to make the Fake Isle hat with a skein of Noro Iro and leftovers from a skein of Baby Alpaca Grande...

FAIL!

Do you see the hourglass shape goin' there? My fair isle skills are in need of some serious practice. Also, it was going to be far too long to be a proper hat.

Here's my foot for scale...

My shoe size is US 8.5 or 9 and my noggin is not that... tall? Ribbit.

Once again, my fail is completely my fault as I tend to see a pattern and say, YES! but then look at my yarn and pick, oh, say bulky when it calls for worsted and then I try math and... fail.

Truthfully, the math was working, I just didn't factor in row count and how that might be different from worsted to bulky. Also, I wasn't feelin' the fair isle between these two yarns. You can see it much better in those pic's then in real life but that's only because of the camera flash. In real life it was not very clear what was going on with the fair isle - the colors of the two yarns were too close to the same or something.

So, I pulled it apart and then used the Noro Iro for a hat that called for Bulky yarn. Wonder of wonders, it worked. Not only did it work, it worked the first time! No ripping, no re-working, nothing. Just a big huge win! Which caused a big huge grin...

I used the Baby Alpaca for the edging and I skipped the side braids.

It's been snowy and cold here so I've been wearing the hell out of this hat! I love it so, I think I will name it. Any suggestions?

I also had enough Iro leftover to think about making some matching mittens. Sadly, I think I may have to rethink those. I used the Iro for the cuffs - CO, Magic Loop, two at a time and that worked out splendidly. I was going to use the big ball of leftover Baby Alpaca Grande for the mittens part but as I worked the first mitten, I could already see that I won't have enough for the second one. sigh. And, it'd cost $13 (plus shipping) to get another skein of it and then I'd have leftovers from that skein and now my lovely hat-matching mitts are languishing. I'm going to go to Ravelry's ISO/DS group and see if anyone has some they'll give up for less then a new skein.

Happy with my new hat, Ruth!