Getting Through Some Yarn

Pattern: plain top down - Yarn: Red Heart Unforgettable in Gossamer - Needle: US 8

  You might recognize the Wegman's table.  We haven't seen that in a while.  I took a short break from going on Saturdays to hang out with Bill instead.

  I can never get the length right when doing a sewn bind off.  I did three times around and ended up with one and a half go arounds left.  I swear that I tried to do two times the circumference and that ended up being too little, but then I keep being left with so much the other times I try more.  The hat is pretty plain and worked from the top down.  I wanted to see how the colors would look with 1x1 brioche ribbing and that is pretty fun too.  I have quite a few skeins of this yarn left, but I think I'm going to save them for a bit.

  I really like how the worms turned out with different colors on their faces.  I saw some yarn at JoAnn Fabric and Crafts that I think would make some really good worms.  They will possibly look tie dyed.  I just have to wonder if I am really going to buy a skein of yarn to dedicate just to Worry Worms.  There is a good chance I will once a good coupon comes out.

  I was asked what I'm doing with all these worms.  I said that I wasn't totally sure yet.  I would normally give them to Claire to take to T.A.P.S. but she isn't traveling into the area this year.  I mentioned that if we ever went back, we could just be a table with things to hand out and not have to have anyone teaching again.  That sounded more plausible to the group to do without Claire.

  I'm having fun seeing the yarn combinations that happen with scraps.  The Red Heart Unforgettable was a bit thinner than the other yarns I used, but I think it works okay.  For the other three I had some fun playing with stitches again.  The leftmost was made with extended single crochets for the body.  The center was made as normal and the one on the right used the twisted single crochet again.

  During the Hatathon Tammy remembered she had a few of these.  I remembered seeing them at JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts but didn't get any at the time.  They were really cute, and I liked the idea of the ball being a kit to make one hat and it come with a topper.

  I did remember that my friend Ariel gave me these a long time ago.  She was trying to downsize her stash and just hadn't felt inspired by them.  When I first got them, I wasn't sure if I was going to try and follow the pattern on the ball band, but I think I will.  They are two different patterns, and it should keep it interesting.

  I went with the needle size suggested on the ball band.  Size 8s are too big, even for me.  I tend to be a tight knitter and usually have to go up a needle size or two.  I wish it didn't start at the novelty yarn because it makes it harder to count the cast on stitches.  I was thinking I could do it top down, but I don't think the novelty yarn would hold the pompom very well, though I also don't know what the other end looks like, so it might not matter in the end.

  They are all different thicknesses, though the ball bands claim they are all the same.  This is one of the reasons I don't like the generic yarn size numbers and generic bands.

  I can understand why they have the crown decreases to be so abrupt, it makes it easier to write out the pattern.  You don't have to worry about different lengths of yarn for the different sizes and different numbers of rows to get down to the same number.  You just have everyone decrease by half in one row and then feed the tail through the end.  The problem is that I don't like the look of the super gathered hat.  We will have to wait and see if I follow the pattern or not because I know there are people out there that aren't as particular about the crown of the hat as I am.