wind it up

the other night, with a lot of assistance from the knittinghelp.com video, i managed to wind my very first center pull ball.



^{soon to be a scarf}


i've been wanting to knit a hat with ear flaps for a while now. i found a relatively easy pattern on knittinghelp.com and i started it two nights ago. the yarn i used is called Wool Pak Yarns. it's 100% new zealand wool. the label actually had no gauge or needle reccomendations. x_X i had asked the woman working at my LYS and she suggested a size between an 8-10.
i was REALLY excited to knit the hat, but, unfortunately i didn't have a short circular and dpns in any of those sizes... so i used the closest one i had: a size 11.
i figured that if i knit very tight then everything should be fine.
the hat turned out HUGE.



^{my sidekick and the hat for scale purposes}


i finished knitting it last night and decided i would shrink the hat in my sink. i spent the next half hour agitating the piece with my hands in the hot hot hot water. my first experience with felting! it dried pretty quickly, and, the size right now is actually quite nice... but... now the hat is felted and... i sort of don't like it anymore. =( the pattern suggests a crochet border... i think that would help the overall look of the hat, but, i don't know how to crochet. oh well, i'll see what i can do with it soon.

my (current) stash

here are a few pictures of my recent purchases:



this is an alpaca - silk blend... i think it wants to be a scarf. it's so soft and i love the color. i have a feeling i should've bought more though... it's only about 200 yards.




i... umm... i don't really know what this is. and i'm having major issues with it. i bought it from the yarn.com year-end sale. it looked different in the pictures and it called for a size 9 needle. the actual yarn label asks for a size 4. hmmm. it's all various man-made materials so i'm not sure what i'll be knitting with it. maybe i'll combine it with a more natural yarn.




i love this stuff! ... i'm also imagining a scarf. =) and i'm also feeling like i, maybe, should've purchased more... hmm.




just some colorful ribbon... i honestly have no idea what to do with it. but, it was on sale so i bought it. o_O




varigated yarn! i'm thinking a scarf for this too. hahahahaha. not too sure on the pattern though.




my current stash on the ironing board.

gotta blog

here's some of my current knitting. hahaha.
due to the ... rush of christmas and the time-consuming nature of knitting... i was unable to take pictures of the 10+ scarves i had knitted. most of the scarves were completed within the same day of seeing the recipient. in the case of the cousin's secret santa... christie was downstairs while i was locked in my room finishing and then wrapping her 2nd scarf. hahaha.

^{i can knit cables!}


i took pictures of all the yarn i've been purchasing... i'll be posting the pictures soon of my stash soon! i recently found the odessa hat pattern. i actually had a ball of the cashsoft dk so... i decided to give it a try. i actually messed up in the beginning. instead of CO 110 i only did 105. the base of the hat is ribbed in groups of 5 (k3, p2) so i didn't notice my mistake until the first row of pattern which works in groups of 10. x_X on my second row i decided to randomly make 5 stitches to fill the void. it definitly messed up the flow from the ribbed edge to the pattern... but, hopefully it will look alright in the end.



^{the starting of a hat}