Hoot hoot....

After many ( and boy do I mean many) false starts and twisted yarn, I finally managed to get this hat going.  I have to tell you, when there are 80 stitches you have to make sure to not twist while you're trying to figure out which side of the chain you started crocheting on and hope to God you are still crocheting on....it's a pain in the butt.  Genuinely, a giant pain in the butt.  More of a pain than trying not to twist 200 stitches on a circular needle.  And folks, if you have ever done that, you know how frustrating it can be.  More than once I thought "If I were knitting this, I'd be done by now!"  Gah.  But perseverance got me through.  :)

I used the Woolly Owl Hat pattern from Ravelry.  It is written for both bulky and worsted weight yarn.  Because I only have one crochet hook (I really should remedy that now that I am crocheting...) I had to adjust some of the numbers and make stuff up.  Instead of 60 stitches I chained 80 and for the eyes instead of making them super huge (which wouldn't fit) I quit when they were 32 stitches around.  Now that I have one under my belt I really really really want to make the bulky yarn version because it is super adorable!

Little Miss is making this face because I finally told her to please quit moving so I could get a decent shot of her.  Every time I had a good one, she'd flinch just as my phone was taking the picture.  So I have several blurry ones of her that could have been cute, but now we'll never know.  :D

When she arrived at school her teachers and I had a fun chat about arts and crafts, Pinterest and of course never having time to do all the crafts you want to do because you have to A) go out of town to collect supplies, b) figure out what you really want to do and C) decide between the thousands of projects you want to do.  :D

With the hat complete I am thinking she should have some matching mittens.  I think I have enough yarn to make mittens (crocheting really does eat up a lot of yarn!  I think crocheting this hat took up as much yarn as it would to knit myself a hat).  Off to Ravelry!  :)

April Wrap up

It hasn't hit  me like a ton of bricks yet that in 19 days (O.o!) there will be no more school, it will officially be summer, it will be three months of children 24/7, it will be three months before one starts kindergarten and the other begins her foray into the education system and three months of what I hope to be some sort of calming down.  I mean summer is all about relaxing, right?  (I hear you laughing in the background :D )

I keep thinking that summer is going to be filled with nonstop activity but really...it's pretty tame in comparison to some people I know.  A few days to celebrate my cousin's wedding,Vacation Bible School, a week of camping, my SIL's wedding...not too much traveling and insanity. 

As you know last week I finished up a sweater and needed something to occupy my hands on the drive out of town Saturday.  I had one leftover skein of Knit Picks Full Circle wool that was just begging to be made into a hat.  I figured why not.  I had already used its other sad leftover half skein to make a Cabbage Patch sweater (I will put the bare bones instructions in another post).

Awhile back I had knit Tiny Owl Knits pattern Orchids and Fairy Lights.  It's a beautiful pattern and I just didn't have enough yarn to do it justice.  It worked okay, but I think I only did half the amount of repeats needed and so it is more of a beret than a beanie.

Original

New version

Looks way better, right?

So now I have no guilt about throwing myself into an intense shawl pattern :D  I also have heard from my friend about what kind of baby sweater she'd prefer and so I'll be peeking around on KnitPicks for a washable yarn since it'd be silly to give her a newborn sweater that will felt :D  Oh!  And I finally got a better picture of my last sweater.  With buttons!  :D