The aftermath of the hat knitting frenzy

After I finished my sister's hat, I immediately cast on for another, this time for my friend Linda. She had commented on Facebook that she wanted one, and I informed her that hers would be in blue...

Of course her patterns were different, in keeping with my knowledge of her, and when it was done (in record time), I took some more pictures of both and sent them off.

I decided to do some mindless knitting, which to me is knitting someone else's pattern - my mind doesn't have do do anything. I had purchased Romi Hill's newest compilation, "Home is where the Heart is," and with three shawls released, hadn't knit any of them. I liked the idea of the one called Zephyr Cove, knowing where that actually is, so I started in.

I used some Merino/Silk that I had gotten from Knit Picks several years ago and dyed, and some yarn that I had spun shortly after I moved to Oregon from a Romeldale/CVM ram that I had, which was then dyed purple with logwood. Between the two, I knew I had enough yarn. The silk blend was a challenge, as I had salvaged it from a project that had been forgotten, and then something chewed on it (probably the dreaded M word). There were lots of splice points. But it was a beautiful yarn, and reminded me of how I used to paint dye on skeins as opposed to how I've been doing it lately. I'm going to revisit my former technique...

Here are a couple of pictures of the completed shawl, unblocked. I'll be blocking it tomorrow, because it's sheet laundry day, and I can use the bed (with all doors closed to the bedroom so that my "helpers" don't, well, help...).

By the time I got to the end, it had changed it from mindless to mind-numbing... I don't think I'll be doing any more garter stitch anytime soon. The pattern is lovely, but there are some things about it that I didn't like, mainly all of the K2tog through the back loop in the lace section. It interrupted my knitting flow... But that's what you get when you knit someone else's pattern - it probably makes perfect sense to them with their knitting style. Mine is different. So it's not that the pattern is bad, or boring or hard to knit - it's not. It's just not my favorite style of knitting.

This is good to know.

I'm now working on the basic pattern for the Stovepipe hats. I may make a trip over to Michelle's to get her assistance with photos of the tricky part - knitting the casing together - so that I can include that in the pattern. I can explain it, but a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes.

I'm also cogitating on the future of Fiber Voodoo as a business. As I told someone today, it's time for me to s**t or get off the pot, and I need to find the toilet paper. There are lots of ideas floating around, and it's too early to say any of them out loud in public, but there will be future updates pro or con. Among the stumbling blocks is the fact that if I want to expand it, I need to be gone from home more, which I'm not good at. I start to get twitchy after 3 days away from my nest!!

So, off to continue ruminating...