Smitten
Aaaaand here's the rest of it. As always, I like to clip it up and try it on to check the height. I feel like brioche grows just a tiny bit more than most knit fabrics, so I'll err on the side of ever so slightly shorter if I have to, but I also like my hats awfully tall, so not too short (yeah, I know, not super helpful, sorry about that, I think you just really have to try it on and see what you like best). And the decreases are, of course, adorable. As is the finished hat! [...]
Overcome
I was overcome earlier this week. Some yarn winked at me. I found myself unable to resist. And before I knew it, there was a whole new hat in the world. This might well be my personal record holder for speed knitting. I cast on Monday night and cast off Tuesday night. It was less than 24 hours from cast on to bind off (I mean, it took it a bit longer than that to dry after I blocked it...but I'm totally saying drying time doesn't count). This is what happens when you're home alone, have a shiny new audio [...]
We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming
There's supposed to be an order. I knit stuff. I take pictures. I tell you about it. I get the pattern ready. I get fancy pictures of the finished thing. I bring the pattern out. That's supposed to be the order. And, because I do an AWFUL lot of patterns (no really...an awful lot...something like two a month most months, plus books...I'm pretty sure it averages out to more than two dozen a year for ten years running now), I have to carefully schedule all that out far enough ahead of time that getting a cold doesn't throw off [...]
Held Double
Flexes fingers...stretches arms...ok, this is all stuff I've said before, so totally feel free to skip right over this if you've been here a while. But just in case you're new, here's the spiel on the cast on. Yup, I totally cast on over two needles held together. Before anyone screams or cries into their tea or sends me worried messages...don't panic, I know that doesn't make the cast on any looser or stretchier. To make the cast on looser, you need more space *between* one stitch and its neighbor. But casting on this way does make each individual stitch a tiny bit [...]
That’s going to work out nicely…
Pretty sure we need more brioche. And I'm pretty sure this is going to be the way to do it. That orange is some seriously deep stash. The company is, alas, apparently out of business...and normally that means I would not use the yarn, but it's a common enough base that it won't be hard to find an equivalent yarn. And my goodness but it's too pretty not to use. All my suspicions are confirmed by the swatch (insert 'yay swatch, swatch is important, swatch is useful' peptalk right about here). That is, indeed, going to be smashing. Yarns are Punta [...]
I mean I suppose technically it’s more ribbing…
So now we're at the bit where I more or less...well...have to knit ribbing again. And I'm not quite sure why an inch of ribbing at the bottom, before the fun bits, feels like endless purgatory, but three inches of ribbing at the top feels like zipping towards the finish. But somehow it does. So I'm not actually minding tooooooo much. Though if we're being honest, it's still not my favorite bit. Perhaps my uncharacteristic stoicism is because it means it's just about time to do the crown. And I have a suspicion brioche crowns are their own special kind [...]
The fun bits
The ribbing is never my favorite bit. In fact, the ribbing is the bit I sternly make myself do because I know I will like wearing the finished thing better as a result. But really...my heart is in it for the swirly middle bits. Though to be fair, I was rather pleased with myself for being comfy enough with brioche to reach the 'yup, ready to be done with the ribbing' stage right on schedule. I'm pretty sure you can't be both bored and scared at the same time, so if I got to bored, then I'm well past scared, [...]
Dive in
Perhaps you remember the other day? When I was very very very mean and told you that there was a decent chance that some of the reason you 'could never do that' was because you kept telling yourself you can't? Right...so let's talk about that some more. Earlier this year, when our house was invaded by absolutely lovely, skilled, kind people doing extremely noisy, dusty, disruptive things to deal with the aftermath of the burst pipe, I decided I'd deal with the chaos by teaching myself two color brioche. Because that's a reasonable way to cope. So I did! I [...]
You’re probably right
We need to talk about something... When I post a picture of a swatch or a project on instagram, the second most common comment I get (right after 'what's that yarn?') is some version of 'I could never do that, that's way too hard for me!' And it sort of breaks my heart. Because if that's what you're telling yourself, you're probably right...you probably can't. But I have some news! You're not right because the thing itself is particularly hard. You're right because if you go into it thinking 'I could never...' then you're not ever going to try, and [...]
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