TGIF

I'm glad it's Friday, it's been a long week. I do have a long list of errands to run tomorrow, but I won't think about that now.

There has been baby shower knitting this week. It turns out that the yet unborn baby is a girl, so I decided to knit Bev Galeska's pattern "A Berry Cute Hat". I knit this hat before for my granddaughter, Katy, although in the large size. This time it's the small size, which may be why it seems to be a more fiddly pattern that I remembered. I'm using the same yarn and same size needles. I'm using my Denise circular needles sizes US 7 and 9, and Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Cherry Moon and a dark green shade, can't remember what they named it and the label is gone. Here's what I've completed so far.

The leaf border is knit first on the smaller needle and wasn't hard, just garter stitch, increasing into the first or last stitch of the row, depending on whether it was a right side or wrong side row. When you reached the "point" you bind off five stitches, knit three, turn, and start all over again until you have 12 repeats. Easy peasy. Next was the band. This was just rows of stockinette stitch, which rolls up to form a brim. It was knit double stranded on the larger size needles. Now comes the fiddly part. You pick up stitches on the leaf border using a single strand of yarn, one loop through each garter ridge on the straight edge of the border. So far so good. Next, you put the needle holding the border stitches over the needle holding the band stitches, and holding them in your left hand, knit together a stitch from the front needle and a stitch from the back needle. You're knitting together two pieces of circular knitting and the smaller circle has to be stretched around outside of the inner, large circle! It works, but requires some wrestling with your knitting to get it to cooperate. During said wrestling, I am sad to say there was some cussing, causing the the dog to flee upstairs to hide under the bed. (I adopted her from a shelter and her former owner abused her. She's very sensitive to the least hint of violence in the atomosphere. Long story.) After knitting the two pieces together, the berry pattern in pink is started. It's a simpler pattern than it looks, being mostly stockinette except for every sixth row. Then, to make the little bumps, you're required to drop every 4th stitch down four rows, pick it up and knit beneath the "ladder" of four strands above it. This doesn't sound hard, and I don't recall having problems doing this when I knit Katy's hat. This time however, I kept catching one or more of the loose strands when I tried to pull the yarn through the stitch. I finally resorted to a crochet hook, picking up the stitch, pulling the yarn through it and putting the stitch on the needle. It felt a little like cheating, but it worked. Maybe the chardonnay I was drinking was a factor. Anyway.
There is progress on the Country Socks, although I may have been optimistic to think I could finish them before Feb. 1. I finished one sock, but have not yet cast on for the second sock.

We'll see how much knitting gets done this weekend. Have a good one.