Hats

I've mentioned before that my LYS was running a charity knitting group, and that our first project was preemie hats. The group has since broken up (for the time being, at least), but I did get a lot of hats done:

That's extremely similar to the one I already completed for the group, but with a slightly different button. I've also done a third one, but haven't taken a picture yet. Then I switched yarns and patterns:

Pattern is the NICU Petal Hat by Patti Pierce Stone. Like the other hat pattern, it allows you to unbutton the hat in case the baby has wires leading from their head which need to be accommodated.

Then I switched back to the original yarn I was using, but still using the petal hat pattern. This is still in progress:

But wait, there's more! I've also been designing a few new hats. The first design worked very well up to a certain point, and then my first attempt at decreasing didn't make me perfectly happy. I have yet to rip out the decrease section and try again with my second theory, but I'll get there. The second hat design I whipped up one morning last week and the resulting first attempt went really, really well. I'm thinking about self-publishing this one, but I'm mulling over the idea of having test knitters, which would be a first for me.

I also finally, FINALLY, took out the Flutterby Tam I started making for DD1 over a year ago and finished it up. It had originally stalled because I ran out of the main colour of yarn. Then I tried filling in the missing section with the same type of yarn in a different colourway which I had in the stash. However, since the first main colour was variegated, and the filler main colour was solid, the transition looked weird. So finally I decided to hunt down the colourway online (since my LYS, where I bought the first ball, had stopped carrying it in the intervening year-and-a-half-or-so) and buy another ball.

Anyway, it's done:

This brings my WIP count down to 60. An outrageously high number generally speaking, but for me that's actually good. (Sad.)

No time to relax

Did I say last time that I had three immovable deadlines?

Yes. Well, now I have six.

This is, at its essentials, wonderfully fantabulous news of course, since it means more acceptances have come in! (Technically two acceptances, but one of them was for a set of two garments, which to me means three additional projects with deadlines.) On the other hand, it's making my idea to take a panic knitting vacation seem rather smart. And actually, I've begun to wonder if I don't need to extend the one week of vacation into two?

So far, I don't think so. Yarn support for two of the projects arrived on Monday and I've made an excellent start on one of the samples. So excellent, in fact, that I've hit the limit of what I can do without first checking on a particular design point with the editor.

While waiting to clear that question up, I finished off DD2's three pairs of purple socks:

Six socks, all the same size, all made from one 100g ball of sock yarn, with slightly more than a yard left over. Aw, yeee-ah.

This week, I also finished off the preemie cap I made at my LYS's first charity knitting night:

open




closed




'in action'



(this was a good doll to model it on because I can demonstrate how the holes for tubes and wires work by using them for her ponytails)

Our second charity night was this past Wednesday, so I started and finished the knitting of a second hat:

(looking oddly like Boba Fett there)

Next, I'll be turning either back to my cousin's baby blanket project, or over to the second project for which yarn support has already come in, depending on my mood.

I'm really looking forward to later in the year when this flurry of deadline knitting is over and I can actually share all these mystery projects with you!