They Are at Least Fun to Look At

Pattern: Party Ruffle Hat - Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in Adobe and Red Heart Boutique Sashay Multicolor in Tango - Needles: US 8

  I cast on 90 stitches.  Worked 10 rows of ribbing and 6 rows of plain knitting.  I worked 18 stitches with the fashion yarn, then plain for the rest of the row.  On the next row I knit plain until I got to where I left off of the fashion yarn and used it for 18 more stitches.  That caused it to spiral upward and not be too dense on the hat.  I wanted it to ruffle like the scarves, so I skipped one open spot on the top.  When using the ruffle yarn I caught the bar of the ruffle yarn with my right needle before knitting the next stitch.  I made sure to pull the new loop through the opening of the bar.

  If I write out this pattern, I'm probably going to have them cast on a number divisible by 10.  That way the math will be easier when figuring out how many stitches to work with the ruffle yarn per row.  It also will guarantee that the decrease at the top will work out with 5 decreases per row.  I'm also going to have more ribbing and less plain knit rows before the ruffle so what you see peeking out from the bottom of the ruffles is more consistent around the hat.

  How the designing process went with this:

• Use each bar, but don't think it ruffles enough

• Work 18 stitches with ruffle yarn, but then worry that 5 rows aren't enough between ruffle rows

• Try for 9 rows between ruffle rows, but realize that will only work out easily with the current number cast on

• Work 9 stitches with the ruffle per row because 9 and 10 are close enough to each other

• Get to row 11 of the ruffle part before realizing that 10 rows make the ruffles lay too far apart 

• Go back to 18 stitches of ruffle with 5 rows between

• Wonder if skipping a bar on the ruffle yarn caused it ruffle too much but figure that's something to play with on the next one

Pattern: Party Ruffle Hat - Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in Adobe and Red Heart Boutique Sashay Multicolor in Tango - Needles: US 8

  For this one I didn't skip any bars when working with the ruffle yarn.  I also worked 12 ribbing rows and 2 plain rows before I started using the ruffle yarn.  At the top, the last k2tog row, I wanted to work every stitch with the ruffle yarn.  That didn't happen naturally, so I went around the last row and pulled the stitches through the top of the ruffle yarn once I was done working all of my k2togs.

  One inconvenience I was having with this method was that since I wasn't skipping any, there was nothing to really hold the loops down with.  I ended up with random loops of the ruffle yarn bars on the inside.  That probably won't affect the hat at all, but if I have enough ruffle yarn after this I might try knitting with the bar instead of just slipping it around the stitch.

Pattern: Party Ruffle Hat - Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in Adobe and Red Heart Boutique Sashay Multicolor in Tango - Needles: US 8

  I wasn't as big of a fan of the every bar technique with the ruffle yarn, so I switched back to the every other version.  It's hard to see in the other picture, but you can see a lot more of the background knitting with the every-bar technique.  Since I didn't have a lot left of the skein I decided to see how it would look of I worked it from the top down.

  It was nice to see that it didn't seem to really make a difference.  I do think that the top of needs to have more bars skipped to keep the ruffle yarn loose and not make a tight top spiral.

  My mom and I did a quick drop off at the Lebanon Springs House Ministry.  Brenda told us that she and Tony are planning on moving to West Virginia with their children by the end of July.  Ideally someone they know will take over the B&B so they can come back and host the soup kitchen events still.  If that happens we can keep bringing things to them, if not we will have to find a new location down this way to bring stuff to.

  While at the cabin we checked some of the footage from the trail cameras.  For quite a while we've seen a deer who has a bad front leg.  She won't put any weight on it.  I'm always glad to see that Limpy is getting by, even through the winter.  I wish I could convince her to become a pet and spoil her, though I know that will never happen.  She's just been through so much and has come out the other end that she deserves some ease in her life.

  At one point during the trip Bill had gotten the fire going and it started to rain.  The fire was well enough established that it only needed some more wood to protect the embers.  I had the idea to get umbrellas so we could still sit next to the fire.  It worked pretty well.

Yearly Yarn Tracker:
Yarn In: 5 (0)
Yarn Out: 14 (1)

Total: -9