little things

hoooooo doggie, it is hot and humid today. This time last week I was wearing a hat and mitts--whatever happened to Spring? Why do we need to go from Winter directly to Summer?

I've finished off a few little things lately (that I guess I should just immediately pack away?) cause I don't think there will be much call for them for another 5 or 6 months...



Further to my last post about the owlie mitts comes the Stem & Leaf cowl from the same designer, Betsy Farquhar.



I love this pattern...it's really very reminiscent of one of my favourite designers, Orla Kiely, though uh slightly more in my snack bracket as they say.

That said, I'm not sure how wearable this cowl actually is. Having the full impact of the pattern kind of requires it to stand up rigidly (which it sort of does on it's own) but the second it gets scrunched down, the inside floats are all visible. It's not horrible, it still definitely works, but I dunno...I likely should have chosen some bolder colours. This might get gifted off to someone else.

Also fabulous and from one of my all time favourite knitter/designers, Michele Wang:



Tortillon!



This really is not my usual style of hat, but I have to say it might be time for me to get away from the floppy beret/snood. There definitely is no danger of this one slipping right off my head, in fact I'm not sure I've ever had a hat fit so well! I knit it in it's prescribed Lana Grossa Chiara which again is also not something I'd normally choose given that it's about 80% synthetic (and 20% kid mohair). There seems to be this whole new breed of "fancy" synthetic yarns out there that I know nothing about, and even this stuff is about 17 bucks a ball around these parts. Fortunately it used less than one ball and was decidely worth it. Cushy cushy cushy! This might be the most comfortable hat ever.



It just pains me that it won't see the light of day for many moons again.

And then I got stoked about wearing something like this for cross-country sking:



but we promptly ran out of snow.



Ah well. This is Endless Braid. You can see my Ravelry projects pages for more details about it because I really had to jimmy it to get it to work with one ball of Koigu KPPPM. This is the "winter" version of the pattern, though it's really somewhere in between sizes I'd say, since I knit the strands to different lengths/widths, and the pattern calls for a worsted yarn, not a sock yarn. And lets not forget my pea sized head.



I just really really wanted to knit this from stash and I really also wanted to knit it in a varigated (I apparently own like zero varigated yarns--even this lowly ball of koigu has been in my stash for years...)

And then, the Urban Turban:



I know turbans have been a bit of a fashion craze the last year or two, and this was yet another situation where I decided to knit from stash in a completely different weight of yarn. In this case a DK instead of a lace weight, and it worked though might not be quite as deep as I need this hat to be.

This is a Patons pattern, but I haven't been able to find it to link to it yet --will definitely fix that as soon as it becomes available! I knit it in some leftover baby alpaca --Fable Handknits.

If I was smart I would have dragged these knits out into individual posts with lots of detail for you, but pfft, that's what Ravelry's for I guess. Plus these days I find by the time I'm talking about these projects I am mentally done.with.them. and ready to move on to bigger and better.

And bigger and better is definitely my next course of action...I've never knit a blanket before but now find myself with not one but TWO in the works. And a "mini" sweater. Am I crazy? Will I be knitting with a wool blanket on my lap all summer long?!

Yes, yes I will.