Tuesday 24 February 2015

Year of Projects 4: 24 February update


I wasn't sure I was going to be able to rustle up another FO for this week's update, especially after the success of a pair of socks in a week last week. With the socks off the needles, the only YoP projects I had on the go were all long term affairs. Pogona is progressing well, but hasn't changed enough to be worthy of having more photos taken. My test knit of my Star Trek charts for my nerdy sofa cushions hasn't got to an interesting stage yet, consisting mostly of a large rectangle of black stocking stitch, so there's no pictures of that either. And Chunari is still hibernating, although I did briefly get it out and look at it the other day. I really do need to be in the right mood for laceweight knitting!

The other night, however, I decided to cast on something else from my queue, something which would hopefully be a nice quick knit. The Jayne Cobb hat. Unfortunately, I didn't have a circular needle of the right length, so I had to cast on with DPNs, which made for a very awkward knitting process and rather slow progress.

However, I went to Unravel at the weekend (where I spent a lovely couple of hours wandering about the place with Sarah from Crafts from the Cwtch and Wink of A Creative Being). I only made a few purchases (which completely blew my budget out of the water).


Among all the yarn pretties, you will have noticed a new cable for my interchangeable needles. I now have a 16" cable, which means knitting hats of any size just became a whole lot easier! As soon as I got home, I fixed up the cable with my 7mm needles, and transferred the stitches across. Needless to say, the hat got knit a whole lot quicker after that!

More on the hat in a moment while I digress slightly to talk about the yarns I purchased. Despite not having yet knit a single stitch on the three Easyknits skeins I already own, I picked up two more. The first was definitely on my list of things to buy, a sushi sock roll to knit Jon's Orbit shawl with. I bought the pattern at Unravel last year, and have been holding off knitting it until I had the perfect gradiated skein of yarn to use. I spent a long time debating colours, but settled on Killer Queen, which is a gorgeous combination of electric blue, purple and pink. Of course, I spent so long at Jon's stand that I couldn't help myself, and another skein of Deeply Wicked sort of fell into my hands as well. Another electric blue, as I've grown fond of the colour since knitting my Arctic socks last week!

The third skein I picked up is something I've been wanting to get my hands on for a while. Indigodragonfly yarns have been on my want list for many years, and it's all Keri's fault. I've been reading about all the indigodragonfly yarns she uses for years, and long lamented its lack of availability in this country. But at Unravel last year I discovered that Aragon Yarns are the only UK stockist of this gorgeous yarn, so when I saw their name on the exhibitor list again this year I decided I was definitely going to walk away from the show with something. Not only is the yarn gorgeously soft (it's merino/cashmere/nylon - way too nice for socks if you ask me, I shall be using it for a shawl) and dyed in fantastic colours, it's the names of the colourways which really makes this yarn stand out. Each colour is named after a fabulously geeky quote. The colour I chose is My name is Indigo Montoya, which is a play on words on a quote from The Princess Bride. I'm not adding any of these yarns to my list this year, but I guarantee you that when July rolls around this year, this skein will be top of my list!

Anyhoo, back to my FO for the week. Once I'd switched to the circulars, I flew through the rest of the hat and finished it on Sunday morning.


I made a few modifications to the pattern as written, because I was working with a chunkier yarn and Jamie has a big head. I cast on 64 stitches, did 2x2 rib instead of 1x1 (mainly because I hate doing 1x1), and made the whole thing longer. It's got about 4 inches of orange after the inch of rib, and then 4 inches of yellow before the very sharp decreases. I also added a couple of rows of icord on the ear flaps before casting off.

Jamie claimed it didn't need a pom pom, but I wanted to stay true to the original hat as seen in Firefly. So he got a red and orange pom pom, but it's not particularly bulky. I'm pleased with the finished hat, and he loves it too. And more importantly, I can cross another FO off my list!

4 comments:

  1. Those blue yarns are magnificent! I would be casting on that Orbit shawl right now if I was you. :) The hat is brilliant too--several years ago, my son's girlfriend gave him a similar hat which she had purchased off of Etsy. I just took a peek at Chunari--I would have to be in a certain mood for that much lacework too!
    Have a super week--
    xoxoxo

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  2. Gosh those colours are gorgeous. I am very envious of your indigodragonfly yarn! The hat looks great and looks like a perfect fit.

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  3. Gorgeous colours! I'm not surprised they were irresistible! Yay! for a finished hat too!

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  4. Yay you!!!!!! Have so much fun and make something super pretty. I can't wait to see what it becomes. You picked a fantastic colour ;)

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