The Pirate Life

Ahoy! I finally finished the "We Call Them Pirates" hat - just in time for my friend Todd's visit. I made him the hat to commemorate his first visit to Gasparilla. I say first visit but really one Gasparilla will pretty much do for most people over 25. I was however impressed with Todd's bead catching skills. The St. Petersburg Times said 400,000 people came to watch the invasion and I believe it. Bayshore was packed.

Back to the hat: it was the second We Call Them Pirates hat I made the past two weeks. The first hat I knitted with the recommended needle size. I used the same yarn, Dale of Norway Hauk (same colors even). I checked my gauge like a good little knitter. But when I was done with it I could barely fit it over my head. My knitting got tighter when I used two colors. My swatch was with just one color. That means I either need to do stranded gauge tests for stranded projects or learn how to do stranded knitting correctly. I went up one size, US 4, for the second hat and it worked much better. No longer felt as if pirates were squeezing my brain.

It was too warm to wear the hat for Gasparilla, but Todd graciously agreed to model the next day, when it was a bit cooler:


We even took the hat out for some pirate-y shuffleboard action before Todd had to fly back to DC. Pirates love shuffleboard:

Log Cabin Fever

Woo hoo!! I am finished making Log Cabin socks (at least until next Christmas)! I made four of these as gifts this Christmas. Although I am so, so happy to be able to move on to other patterns, I will probably make more next Christmas, as these are phenomenal house socks. Of the three I made earlier, two were made with Berroco Ultra Alpaca, and one was made with Classic Elite Wings. I used the yarn the pattern called for, Cascade Pastaza, for this final pair, a gift for my brother. He knows he's getting them; Christmas morning he unwrapped half a sock still on the dpns. Pastaza is a pain to knit with. Split yarn everywhere. But boy they are beautiful, warm, soft socks. I wish I had used it for all four socks. I will use it for more house socks in the future.

Pattern: Log Cabin socks from Handknit Holidays
Yarn: Cascade Pastaza, color 027
Needles: Clover dpns US5
Modifications: Used US5 dpns instead of US6, because although the gauge was correct on US6 the socks were huge.

I've been experimenting with different backgrounds in my knitting photos. The first one is taken on my front porch with my cuban tiles as the background. You can see the problem in this photo; turns out dogs, particularly Jackson, love Log Cabin socks.


The detail in these photos isn't very good. I wanted to get a close up of the heel. I love the cabled heel. It looks great on the foot, but since my brother wears size 12's, my feet look like they have elfin magic when I wear these. He's promised to send me a photo of him wearing the socks.

Instant Gratification Socks

I think I underestimated how much work it would be to knit all my Christmas gifts. By New Years Eve I still had one more Log Cabin sock to go; I hit a wall and just couldn't stand one more day of cables. So on New Years Day I gave myself a break and whipped up these bulky alpaca socks, which I have named "Instant Gratification Socks." I made them for a friend who I'm told spends most of her time at home in thick, comfy socks. I hope she likes these. They're soft, comfy and a prettier blue than this photo makes them out to be.



Pattern: Plymouth Yarns Ribbed Socks #36
Yarn: Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande Color #679
Needles: Clover dpns US6
Modifications: Blissfully, none. Followed the intructions and had a few days of stress-free knitting.