Going to the Dance, and Knitting Under the Influence

Well, Mike and AnnaLaura have just left for the school's Father Daughter Dance. What a great idea!! The dance is held for all the girls in the school (K - 12) and their Father/Uncle/Gaurdian/etc. Not only did it give her a reason to wear her Christmas dress again, but she has a reason to wear the cape Grandma gave her for Christmas (I didn't think that would ever happen).

What I Have Learned About Knitting

As previously mentioned, my friend has taught me how to knit. I quite enjoy it (although for some reason it makes me dizzy...don't ask). As my very first project, I attempted a "Jayne" hat. Now if you've never seen Firefly (a very good, wrongly cancelled show) you are probably wondering why anyone would want to wear the thing, let alone make it (perhaps if I find a picture of Adam Baldwin wearing it, you'll understand). I learned that if I ever make another one I shall find thicker yarn. I also learned that hats are easy (HA! un-learned that soon enough!). Anyway....here is the Jayne Hat in all its glory (?). I picture it here for Amy so that she might wonder what I was thinking (psst, Amy, use thicker yarn if you plan on making one...oh yeah, and I had to cast on 90 something stitches...use thicker yarn) when I picked this for a first project. Oh, and Amy will be proud to know that I used Knitting Help to figure out how to pick up stitches for the earflaps. See Amy, I was listening! Oh, and when viewing this pic, please bear in mind that Mike's head (the intended wearer) is 5" bigger around than the kidlet's.

Now since I had successfully completed a rather odd hat with ease, I decided to make the kid a hat. I picked out some cute yarn that I could throw in the wash when I wanted and started knitting. Okay...since I began knitting while the kid was sleeping I used a very handy chart in this wonderful book that told me that a 2 - 5 year old has a 18" head and a 6 - 10 year old has a 19" head. Armed with this knowledge I began knitting. After a day or two, and 5" of hat completed, I attempt (notice my choice of word) to put it on my kid's head. Do you think it fit? Hell NO! So I measure her head and find that it's 20" around!!! I have become very good at ripping out stitches, let me tell you. So I try again. Once again I listen to this wonderful book about when to start decreasing the hat at the top...now I have a hat too short to fit on my kid's head (my kid has a big head, have you noticed?). So I rip out more stitches, and attempt (there's that word again!) to stop halfway and put the stitches back on my needle so I won't have to start at the begining again. And I did it! I got all the stiches back on my needle and just as a was sticking my needle through the very last stitch....the first 2 fell off the other end and slipped down 2 more rows. So once again I started the hat at the begining. *sigh* I did finally manage to complete it, AnnaLaura loves it, and (just because someone up there wants me to make more hats) she left it at school last week and it hasn't been seen since. But here is the hat in all it's glory!

After finishing her hat, I still had a bunch of yarn left... and since AnnaLaura was begging for a scarf, I made a scarf. In doing so I learned another valuable knitting lesson: DO NOT KNIT WHILE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF COLD MEDICINE!! There are so many rows of knitting when I was suppose to be purling (and vice versa) due to that cold medicine....*sigh* At one point I mentioned that I was going to start over (I really didn't like how it looked anyway) and AnnaLaura got so sad. "But Mom, I really want my scarf!" So, realizing that my 5 year old could care less if I was knitting and purling in the proper order, I continued on (heck, when she told me she wanted a scarf I told her she had enough of them, and she said - bless her heart - "But I don't have one that you made, Mom!" Aaaaawwww....... Of course the scarf is also MIA with the hat, so...... Now I'm making a scarf for my Mom, bought a book that has all sorts of stitch patterns in it, and have now figured out how to do a "linen stitch" It really is a nice looking stitch. Now I just have to hope that my cold doesn't come back (or maybe my mom should hope that my cold doesn't come back).