My First Sockhead Hat

There are so many patterns out there that are "common knits" the sockhead hat is one of them. The pattern is written by Kelly McClure. It is a basic hat with rib and stockinette stitch that is a bit slouchy. The pattern is a free download on Ravelry and you can find it here.  Kelly has a lot of wonderful patterns, there are several hats of hers I want to knit.

The pattern calls for 437 yards of fingering weight yarn. I went with some Madeline Tosh in the Fjord colorway. I also used a US 3 and made a few mods. I did 3.5 inches of the rib and I only knit 6 inches before I started the decreases. I only used 214 yards of yarn! the hat is plenty slouchy for me and fits great. I love how it turned out and am glad I did not make it longer. The yarn is wonderful. it does grow some after its soak but not more than I wanted. It also gets even softer than in the skein which is crazy.

  

Another FO I have done is a mandala. I used the African Flower motif from Heidi Bears for the center. I used a scrap yarn in an effort to use up some of what I have. I also have some other projects from scrap yarn going right now that can be seen in my project page on Rav. I am hoping to get those done this weekend. If you are not familiar with her awesome stuffies using hexagons you really need to check her out.  The link to her Ravelry page is http://www.ravelry.com/designers/heidi-bears

 Now For Knitting failures......

1.. The color affection... I was so super excited about this shawl. I love the pattern and chose Malabrigo Arroyo to make mine in. I love the 3 colors I chose : Reflecting Pool, Regatta Blue and Indiecita. See how lovely they look together??  Now the problem is when I started knitting them the Indiecita became lost. Its that multi-colored one on top. I man like totally got lost in the blues. I ripped it out and now my color affection is in area 51 waiting for me to order another color. I think I am going to go with the sand color. I love this yarn as well. The colors are so deep and pretty and it is wonderful sliding through my fingers as I knit.

2.... Basic Bolero .... As soon as I got the Winter 2013 Love of Knitting magazine I feel in love with the Basic Bolero. I even bought yarn for it and it has been waiting on me to cast it on. The problem is my gauge was spot on.... however it looked to small and wonky. I am thinking it may not be the best first sweater project. Maybe I should make on top down so I can see how sweaters come together and how they shape and fit before I try this one.....