...with the knitting

In the famous words of Oz (and PC): ignore the man behind the curtain.  

That's PC, holding up Livvie's new hat. It's the Temple Cats pattern, gifted to me by a friend, in Cascade 220 Superwash (Sue: toss right into the washer and dryer, but it'd prefer to lie flat to dry). It's hot pink and baby pink and it's perfect for that 4 year old in your life who loves cats.

I have to admit, the braided band makes me giggle. I love it, but braids are one of those things that are 0% intuitive to me when knitting. They never look like they are supposed to until after you've knit a bit beyond them. This is unfortunate because if you don't like the look, it's ripping out good knitting to get to bad.

The yarn. Cascade 220 Superwash gives me fits. I *love* it, but it's not the same gauge as regular Cascade 220, I don't care what they tell me. I knit this hat on US7 and it needs a good blocking over a vase or bowl to even out the colorwork a bit, but I would highly suggest a US6.

So much of my holiday life is 'knitting' but not this year. A few special hats for a few special kids, some non-holiday mittens (hang on, Jack--- I'm perfecting the dino hat and dino mittens for you this year!), and everything else is coming from a shop. Nice shops, but shops nonetheless. It's not that I don't think people will appreciate them (seriously: my SIL's reaction to handknits needs to make youtube... it makes any knitter proud), but the time. Some of the fam & friends will get handknits but some will not.

More tomorrow... I'm thinking we'll discuss something a little lighthearted and something a little politico-- like something I like to call the Snowflake People. :)