Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Back in Business

Thursday afternoon of last week, it was pouring rain. This turned to a bit of snow, then to ice. We were awakened by a sound at around 2:30 am or so Friday morning. "Was that lightening?" I asked my husband, very confused. No, no, it was the transformer exploding. The power went out. We spent the rest of the night listening to the sound of trees and branches falling (did I mention that we now live right next to conservation woods?), as the house got colder and colder. In the morning, the trees were still coated with ice, and every few seconds another branch would go. I went out on the front porch and witnessed a large branch come down in our driveway, which thankfully missed the car. We ended up spending the next 3 nights a wonderful friend's house in a suburb that wasn't hammered by the ice storm, and just got power back last night. I'm feeling very discombobulated and off my schedule.

When we figured out we were getting power back on Friday, it was late enough that the sun was going down and my husband was encouraging me to leave before the wet roads turned to black ice. I threw some things together and headed off. Thankfully, I already had a knitting bag packed, so I tossed some more projects in (because, you know, when you're hanging out with five kids under the age 5.5, including two infants, you have SO much time for knitting). I did end up getting my dad's hat finished.

I pulled out my sister's cable hat, it just wasn't doing it for me and it was too small. I'm now planning on Stella's Hat. I started it once but didn't trust the pattern, so I cast on 88 stitches, which turned out to be HUGE. So I restated with 80 stitches. I started Magic Loop, but even though I didn't twist my stitches in the join, I somehow kerfuffled my cable so the thing got twisted, so I pulled it out. I did two rows on straight needles then switched to round. It's funny, in doing these hats, I've rediscovered my love of my Denise kit. It had fallen into disfavor when my sexy KnitPick Options set showed up, but I've found the love, since KP doesn't have a 16" cable for the Options set. (At least they didn't the last time I looked.) So, I'm working on this hat too, hoping to get it done soon so I can send these off to Vermont.

I'm planning a couple of felted hats for myself, but have no idea how one would block them. Any suggestions?

2 comments:

Adrienne said...

A Large coffee can was suggested to me for the bucket hat :)

Dorothy said...

Towels, stuffed into the hat to make it the right shape?

Blocking lace isn't as scary as it seems - I find a tape measure helpful, and give yourself time to do all the pinning! Branching Out seems a particularly easy item to block.