Hats!

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything. Shame on me! We've had a new baby (okay... he just turned one) we moved to a new city (all right... 7 months ago) and we've all been sick all winter. Those are okay excuses to not have posted anything, right? Okay I know. No excuse. I actually have done many projects, but I haven't been able to get pictures of all of them before I sent them off or gave them away. I'll do my best to catch up. We'll start with some hats that went to Canada a few weeks ago. These are all my own pattern except the Koala hat which was bought at the request of the mama who ordered the hats. I love love LOVE how soft the yarn is that I used for the Koala hat. The owls are made with my favorite Berroco Ultra Alpaca with trims in whatever, and the monster is Cestari. Enjoy! By the way, I LOVE the eyes on that little girlie owl. I'll definitely be using those again!

Hello Kitty Shorties

I think these turned out really cute. The colors are beautiful, there's very little pooling, and the design was easy and very cute, if I do say so myself :). However, I have decided that although I see the merits of Cestari Superfine as a soaker yarn, I don't like knitting with it. It's very soft and squishy and thick, which makes for a very good soaker, but instead of being springy and slightly stretchy like most wool yarn, it's very stiff like cotton and very tiring to knit with. Plus, it has LOTS of little twigs and grass and (shudder) brown bits that could only be leftover bits of dingleberries! This is no reflection at all on the dyer, Lollytree Yarns, which are beautifully dyed, and I wouldn't have been able to finish this one without some extra help from the dyer (she sent me some white cestari superfine to make the Hello Kitty face) and I LOVE HER!, but I do not like this yarn. This is the second one I've made and I had my doubts with the first one, but it turned out so cute and I figured the twigs had to be an aberration. Why would people be so crazy about such a poor quality item? But it was not an aberration, and yeah... I would recommend something else. My new mission (or maybe just my continued mission) is to convert the world to alpaca. I love alpaca. Especially when it's blended with wool. Then it has the luxury of super soft, lustrous alpaca, and springy, stretchy, lovely wool. Maybe I can get the Lollytree Yarn girl to dye me some alpaca and convert her! Maybe that's what I'll have to do :).

Leslie's Longies

This was the funkiest yarn I've ever worked with. It's really spongy and fun! It was full of grass though, so I had to keep a pair of tweezers next to me to pick it out, and I'm sure I still missed some, but it was fun to work with. I may have to try some more! The mom did send the labels with this one, but I don't know if I still have them or not. I'll have to look around.