OK, so I knit a hat this weekend. There was some yarn marinating in my stash that I wanted to knit up, so I picked a hat pattern that looked interesting, and started knitting away. Problem is, I didn't realize that maybe the yarn + pattern wasn't the best combination until I was halfway through the hat. And then I figured I might as well finish it anyway, to see how it turned out in the end. So here it is. What do you think, acceptable, or fugly as hell? 
This is the Short Row Hat from the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave. If you click on the link to the pattern (a pdf), you'll notice that the knitter has chosen a softly striping yarn which gives the short row squares a lovely entrelac-y look. What did I choose? Crazy variegated goodness, you can't even see the stupid diamond-things. I should have saved myself the short row hassle (although now I'm pretty good at YO short rows!) and knit something in plain stockinette instead. But now I don't care enough to rip it all out. I will probably wear it anyway, even though I suspect that it should really stand out as an example of what not to knit. =) But it hasn't been all disasters over here Chez Chen, here is a lovely Irish Hiking Scarf knit in Rowan's new Tapestry yarn, a Christmas prezzie-to-be. I love the way it stripes (should've used it for the Short Row Hat!). I wasn't such a huge fan of its splittiness while knitting it, but I definitely think the end effect was worth it. 
So, I really should have done this a while ago, but I wanted to post up a picture of something my good friends Elaine and Carolyn gave me for my birthday. I took a picture really close up (remember the whole Eye Spy thing on the back of OWL Magazine? ^__^), so see if you can guess what it is. You ready?
Ta~da!! Needless to say, I am loving it and send huge thank you's to them.
Also, while Mita came to visit me at PMH, she happened to see me wearing some wrist-warmers. It's bloody cold in the office, so I can't get by without them. Well, this prompted her to ask me if I could make a pair for her, and who was I to say no to a request? So, we went off to Lettuce Knit to pick out some yarn. Silly me didn't take a picture of the yarn after I bought it, but here's a nice little pic of the FO (along with me being silly)
Lastly, I am getting closer and closer to finishing my Clapotis after having frogged the entire thing all the way back in...uh...I think it was July. I have one more 'official' straight row to go, but I might make it longer considering the fact that I decided to make this Clapotis a bit more narrow. I haven't decided yet. How much more do the decrease rows and finishing rows add?
I've also started the Icarus Shawl from the Summer 2006 Interweave. I'm not quite ready to show pictures of it yet. It hardly looks like anything yet. But I'm finding more and more that lace weight yarn makes me annoyed. Next time I make lace stuff, I might pick a slightly weightier yarn.
Right-o. Got off my lazy butt and took some pictures.
Here's a Branching Out scarf that I made for myself out of Cotton Patine. It's a nice fall scarf and I wear it a lot right now. The only thing I don't like about it is the fact that you don't always seen the pattern clearly when you're wearing it.
And here's a cable hat that I made out of Blue Sky Alpaca (it's hard to see the cables because of the color choice. sorry). I used two strands knit together to make it nice and warm, and super soft. I originally made it for Jamie, but he doesn't want it because he can't fold up the bottom and have it still cover his ears. Never mind the fact that you're not supposed to fold up the bottom. Oh well. It was fun to knit up. But yeah...see what I mean about knitting things for people who won't wear them? Guess that means I should only knit for myself since I'll be sure to use whatever it is I make!
2006/09/13 Edit: Guess I was sufficiently ticked off last night that Jamie decided to reconsider not wanting the hat. He said that he'll give it a try, and maybe change is good.
I have decided that long car trips are great. While Jamie drove us to Ottawa, I got myself a lot of knitting done. Little by little, I will chip away at my stash!!
Okay, so first up we have the multidirectional scarf that I had pretty much finished, but decided to frog.
I ended up decreasing the number of stitches in it, as well as increasing the needle size to US11. Those two changes ended up making a huge difference in the way the scarf turned out. Using just two skeins of Silk Garden, I was able to make what was pretty much a 8-9 foot scarf. So, now I have a third skein of the same stuff that I had bought just in case, and I need to think of something to do with it. The photo of it didn't really turn out that well, but I think you've made enough multidirectional scarves to know what they look like!
Next, is the a 2x2 ribbed hat that I made from the Alchemy that the wonderful Adrienne gave me in our yarn swap, which I can't really call a swap because she never took anything from my stash in the end!
I originally thought I'd make the hat for Jamie, but he decided that the colour of the hat was too girly for him.
It's sometimes hard to try and take a photo of your own head!
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The thing I'm most proud about the hat project is the fact that I started it in the car on the way back from Ottawa (including winding the yarn), and was pretty much done by the time we got home. It was a nice, fun knit, and the Alchemy yarn was great to work with. It's really soft when it knits up, and the hat itself is quite squishy feeling due to the slightly larger than recommended needle size that I used. Unfortunately, it doesn't match with any coats that I own! Ha ha!!
Because I totally suck, I have been delinquent in putting up these photos. But as I promised in my last post, here are the photos I took of the peacock feathers shawl. The pics were taken while I was blocking the sucker, and let me tell you, it's not easy blocking something like that when you've got two curious kitties around. The computer room wasn't big enough for me to do the best job with the blocking, but I still think it turned out okay. I was running out of room to stand in if you believe it!
Here's a closer look at the lace pattern taken from a slightly different angle.
So, I actually managed to finish that Peacock Feather's shawl for my dance teacher (photos to come). It definitely was a learning experience. I learned that while I love my Denise interchangeables, they can be a pain for large projects where you need to chain a whole bunch of those connector pieces together. My loops would get caught on the joints, and it kinda drove me nuts sometimes. Also, I learned that you can't always trust what they say on the pattern for the amount of yarn that you'll need. I got two skeins of the Jaeggerspun (which is REALLY nice to work with, and I highly recommend it), but it turned out not to be enough. I had to end the shawl early and thankfully was able to finish the crochet chain binding (another new thing that I learned!). And even still, the shawl turned out HUGE! It was just kinda weird though, cuz that made me feel like I wasn't knitting tightly enough, but they even say in the instructions to knit more loosely. Oh well.
I think I'm going to move back to smaller, more recreational projects soon. Blocking that sucker was pretty hard. And back to stash busting!! I really need to make a serious dent in it.
