So I kept looking at the first of the baby hats.  Looking at it and thinking it was just a smidge too short.  Not a lot...it still looked like a hat.  But just enough that it was bugging me.  The time honored tradition of sort of tugging on it a bit to encourage it to grow wasn't working. So I said a lot of very uncivilized things under my breath about how I am a Fairly Experienced Hat Knitter and how I Should Know Better and how It Would Have Been Faster To Do It Right The First Time.  And [...]

This might possibly have the biggest 'just one more row' vibes of anything I've ever knit. You create each row of zig zags over the course of a couple of rows of knitting, and the urge to just blast through the rows it takes to get on more perfect line of zig zags is more or less irresistible. I mean not that I'm complaining, this is not sad news. But it does mean you're done awfully quickly. Which means you get to admire that...which may just be the cutest hat crown ever. Yes, there will be a pattern (the folks [...]

Look, you knew I was going to have a hard time stopping at just one.  Especially when there was rather a lot of yarn left. This was more or less inevitable. And don't fret, babies don't yet have terribly developed fashion sense, so you can put most anything on their head.  At least at first. Take advantage of it while you can.

If you’ve been following along for the last few weeks, you know I am neck deep in a massive shop reorganization.  At the beginning of the year, I took my whole ravelry store down (yes, very very very scary).  And I’ve been busy bringing patterns back out as I get them revised and reformatted. I am having more fun with this than I should probably admit (look, I'm one of those people who responds to stress by reorganizing my bookcases, you had to know this would be my sort of project).  But you're probably not interested in what makes my [...]

There we go, ends woven in (yes, yes there are a lot of ends, but it's fine, I kind of like weaving them in).  Blocked (always).  And cute as can be. Possibly slightly cuter than is allowed by law.  But I won't tell if you don't. The only problem (and I use problem very loosely) is that I have yarn left.  So we may just have to do it all again with a few variations.

So here's the bit where I glower at you and tell you you should be blocking things. All that generally means is 'toss it a sink full of cool water (kitten supervisor is optional), let it soak for half an hour, squeeze out the excess water, smooth it out, and let it dry.'  If you happen to have a bowl or a balloon or a wig stand or something head shaped, let it dry on that. But if not, just letting it dry flat is better than not blocking it at all. But for this one, you'll notice I did [...]

So that thing where babies have small(ish) heads? Yeah, well it makes for quick knitting. This went from swatch to cast on to finished over something like two or three knitting sessions. Which is fair, because from what I've heard, babies outgrow knitted stuff at an alarming rate. But now, I'm going to go weave in the ends (there are rather a lot) and block this (yes, block everything, even baby stuff, just hush and do it, it's worth it).  And then I will come back and show it off properly!

Someone I know (very definitely not me, seriously, no, do not even ask, that's super weird to ask and you should totally know better, you will get a whole lecture if you make it weird) is currently producing a baby. And that means I get to make some truly absurd baby hats. Because babies are helpless little meatloafs at first, and the reward for putting up with their never ending stream of noise and bodily fluids is that you get to put ludicrous stuff on their heads. At least that's my theory. So I will wrap its tiny little head [...]

On Tuesday I put out the pattern for Dispatch (the little envelopes of alarming cuteness).  The response was overwhelmingly positive (it pretty much always is for those tiny projects).  People were excited it was out.  People bought the pattern.  People started showing me the awesome things they were making and telling about their marvelous plans for their creations.  Everything was great! Then Thursday morning I got kind of a crummy comment. The comment was left publicly on the pattern's ravelry page for anyone to see (not sent to me privately) so I feel comfortable sharing it here (though I have [...]