More Charity Hats

I finally sent my mother and father their belated Christmas package. Inside were various things (a painting I got from the peninsula of a native american hummingbird, chocolates from a local chocolatier, a can of tuna, $70 worth of bath bombs from LUSH!).. INCLUDING my heathered grey alpaca convertible mitts (see prior entries). My mom really loved them, but the best rave came a few days later.. she said she's been wearing them everyday, and loves to wear them at work where it's a little drafty. Since they're convertible, she can just pull back the flaps and type all day while keeping her hands nice and toasty warm. She called me excitedly a few days ago to tell me that all of her coworkers are insanely jealous over her gloves and have been asking on a daily basis where she got them from. When she told them that I knit them for her they were all in disbelief and asked for me to knit THEM gloves too! Haha, no such luck for them.. but the stroke of ego was nice. Although I've knit for.. 8 or so years? I lost count. I think I've really become .. good, only lately.. in the past year or so. I understand how to knit, why things look the way they do, how to create patterns on the fly, etc. I finally understand knitting, so I've gotten much better and faster at it. It's nice!

I've been working on more charity hats, but as you recall from the last few posts, hit a snag when my dog decided to eat my skein of yarn. I ended up detangling what I could (about 3/4 of it) and just throwing the rest. Since then I've made good progress and am hoping to finish tonight (if I don't get too distracted on Ravelry.. or looking at rental listings on CL, we're moving soon, nooo!!). I recently got some Manos through a swap online and already have a pattern ready to go for it, I want to knit with it sooo badly. Anyway, wanted to share some progress shots.

Man this is an awful picture of me..

It's Bernat Satin yarn (again), in "denim heather", I believe. The pattern is just improved 2X2 ribs with a false cable. The false cable was being a giant pain in the ass to start with, as I've only seen it demonstrated once for about 5 seconds (a few months ago, no less).. and couldn't find any instructions on the internet of how to do it. It was trial and error, but once I figured it out, it turned out to be pretty awesome looking! For the record, all it is is knitting into the second stitch, then the first, then pulling both off the needle. It sounds more complex than it is, really.

Below is another photo of my completely charity hat in a chocolate brown Bernat Satin (with strips of TLC Amore in lt green). It was sunny today for the first time in three months, so I wanted to take photos that were a little nicer than the flash ones I already have.

And of course, no entry is complete without a picture of Kira. She was LOVING the sun and soaking every last bit of it up all day long. In the summer she will literally lay in the sun from 8AM-10PM and sleep.. she just loves it. Cute little puppy girl :)