A childhood confession about hats.

I can't really say how long I've been knitting. I remember learning from either my mother or grandmother when I was wee. At that point in time knitting didn't seem as captivating as other things do to a 6 year old. Then I had a knitting spree in college, but it was only to the effect of knitting scarves. I couldn't even bring myself to attempt a hat, which by all accounts is a much faster and therefore more satisfying project. Most recently I have been knitting fairly consistently for 1.5 years, and I have just started knitting hats.


This is my second hat... ever, and it only took me a day. No really, all day. Good thing this weekend was spent house sitting and feeding a pack of rowdy dogs and making sure the sheep were in the proper pen and, well, that was about it. So on Saturday, after some coffee, I sat down and knit a hat. It's officially a beret, which I was somewhat apprehensive about due to a well-intentioned but downright ridiculous hat collection I had growing up. I think at one point I had a Rastafarian beret, which may have been the subconscious reason I have been opposed to them for sometime. Anyway, the hat involved a lot of cabling and necessitated blocking over a dinner plate to give the hat the beret look instead of the gnome look.

What's next you might ask? I received 9 hanks of yarn in the mail today and will begin knitting a sweater for Nic that I've been threatening to knit for some time now. That should keep me busy and out of trouble.

Cephalopods!

Halloween is a hit-and-miss holiday for me, and it has recently dawned on me that no one is going to make holidays special for you once you're all growed up. You've got to put the effort in to have a rockin' costume.


These costumes almost didn't happen due to family duties of sheep shearing followed by some downright pleasant company. Once all that was over, there was only 5 short days to create a couple of cephalopods out of 8 yards of polyester. So I holed up next to the sewing machine and devoted the following four evenings to the cause. Thankfully they came together surprisingly easy, and no sleep was lost throughout the process.


Not wanting to re-invent the wheel, I did some internet investigating and found a handy tutorial about how to make an octopus costume, which I modeled my work after. I took a cape approach to the critters and velcro was used to fasten below the chin. I also made sure to create a hat of sorts for the large headpieces of both the squid an octopus so that ones' head didn't sink into the heads.


I'm so pleased with how they turned out, I'm thinking about going into the large plush costume-making business. I hope that these critters find another occasion to venture out- they're a real crowd-pleaser if I do say so myself.