Playing Catch-Up

So, it's that time... time for me to post one (actually, it's looking like it's going to be two, since one is project specific) big post so that I can get caught up on all the stuff I've been working on. I, of course, forgot and continue to forget, to take pictures of the gift receivers in their gifts. Someday I'll learn. If you are a gift recipient and want to send me a picture of you using your fabulous goods, I'd be much obliged. Anyway, here we go:

Again, I am my own best model. It is kind of hard to see the hat, but this is my new favorite pattern. Here is a picture of the pattern and the multiple hats that are arising out of it:

The pattern is Vegancraftastic's "Slacker Hat". I did alter the pattern just a bit to make it deeper, as I apparently have a very big head. That being said, I do 29 or 31 rows of the alternate colors when I am making mine, depending on how much yarn I have of each color. This is a great stash buster and I'm making another one right now, trying to use up that light blue in the red striped hats above:

This one's in blue and orange. The orange is left over from a silly project made for tattoo maven friend Erin when she opened her own shop. I crocheted her an electric orange colored crayon, since the shop is called Electric Crayon Tattoo. Paul doubted my color choice, which made me doubt myself for about 30 seconds... then I saw the outcome, and fears were allayed. It looks fantastic. :)

Other hat knitting:

This hat is I Dream of Knitting's "Robin's Egg Blue Hat". Really simple knit for those just starting out... big chunky yarn, big chunky needles. A little bit wacky with the fact that it starts out knit on straight needles and switches to knitting in the round. That's the only part that takes a little getting used to, but I've done a couple of patterns with this effect, and really like the way they turn out. It looks like they have a button "flap" holding them on, but really, you just sew up the flap, and voila, hat. Anyway, this one is too big for even my big head. I went with the larger size directions in the pattern, and think when I make it again, I will go with the smaller size. (knit for 5 inches from cast on instead of 5 1/2 inches).

Finally, for something completely different:

I have named these little friends the alien glovies. The weird-o neon green fingerless gloves showed up in the lost and found at work and after 3 weeks of them not being claimed, I decided to give them a good home. My initial idea was to cut out a felt octopus to put on each glove, but that didn't end up working so well with the size of the gloves. After about 4 tries, I decided to change direction, so I just turned an octopus head into a circle and started playing around. I had a scrap of sparkly white felt in my stash, so I cut circles out of that, too, and thus arose the alien glovies.

Here I am sporting the glovie. It's kind of creepy, but I sort of love them. Paul was laughing pretty hard when I put the gloves on and held my hand sideways like a duck and started making alien voices. Okay, so I need a better hobby. Anyway, I love these, and hope I find some more abandoned fingerless mitts so I can upcycle some more!

Check in for part two of the catch up blogs tomorrow where we'll be examining stamping on baby clothes, stencilling, and a complete post dedicated to making children's capes for a costume stash, featuring my new favorite model: Senor Frog.