Really Late -- or Really Early

I figure I'm only about six or seven months late with this promised hat. Or, I suppose, I'm several months early, depending on how you look at it.

Pattern: 1898 Hat by Kristine Byrnes
Yarn: Youghiogheny Yarns Yough Worsted (100% superwash merino) in Submerged, approximately three-quarters of a skein
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) 32 in. Addi Turbos, magic loop
Started/Completed: September 20/September 25

I knit this delightful pattern exactly as written, with no modifications. As with the first time I knit it, I found the finished hat to be a snug fit, but as Rainbow's head is slightly smaller than mine and I have a feeling it will grow a bit when I block it, I think it will be fine. She was so thrilled that it was done this morning (I finished it last night after she went to bed) that she promptly put it on and wore it all during breakfast. Were it not for the fact that the high temperature was supposed to be near 90 today, I think she might have even tried to wear it to school!

Rainbow picked out the yarn (and bought it herself!) at the Indie Knit and Spin* show this past February, and it's been sitting and waiting for me to knit it up into the hat she requested ever since. I enjoyed working with the yarn, for the most part, though it didn't feel as soft as I would expect a superwash merino to feel. I'll be interested to see if it bleeds at all when I wash the hat, as sometimes a bit of extra dye can leave the yarn feeling crunchy, for lack of a better term. Plus, it's a dark blue, and we all know how blues love to bleed.

I'll readily admit that I completely ignored my Rhinebeck sweater last night in order to finish up the hat, but seeing her reaction to it this morning made it all worth it.

There was so little time left before bed after I finished the hat that I figured I'd cast on my new lunchtime project, for which the yarn conveniently arrived earlier this week. I'm designing a new pair of socks for the Knit Picks IDP program in their new(ish) Hawthorne Tonal Hand Paint yarn. The colorway I'm using is Ashland, a pinky purple.

It's been a while since I knit socks with any sort of pattern, and I'm enjoying this one (and not just because it's my own design). As relaxing as it is to knit a mindless stockinette sock that allows you to zone out while you knit, there's something to be said for an engaging pattern that requires a bit of attention. I'll be making these a little shorter than my usual socks due to the relatively low yardage in each skein of Hawthorne, but I think that will probably work to my advantage in that I'll get these finished up and get the pattern off to my tech editor that much faster.


*Incidentally, have I mentioned that I'm vending at Indie Knit and Spin this November? It looks like a fantastic lineup of vendors -- I'm going to have a hard time not spending all my money!