On the mend.

You know, being forced to sit a whole bunch and knit sounds like my ultimate fantasy and yet...well, I won't say it was miserable (though WOW does my back hurt now!) but it wasn't all glorious. Perhaps because (a) I'm used to being pretty active and (b) it's not like the rest of my life stopped! My house is a DISASTER area now. Oh well. What can you do? I did get the hat done!

From looking at the pattern and doing the math - she's expecting you to get 4 sts per inch, so her medium hat should get you a 20" hat. Even though it's a stretchy knit, that wasn't going to work for my friend's father. And, I was getting more like 5.5 sts/inch. So I ended up casting on 112. That's a lot of stitches so this hat went much more slowly than I anticipated. She also expects that you get 6 rows/inch and I was getting more like 4.5. So, for the 4" cuff, I did 22 rows. For the body of the hat, I did another 22 rows, and then, curiously enough, had 22 rows of decreases.

I love the top of this, it really has a neat swirl to it! The yarn for this is Malabrigo Worsted (ahhhhh) and I knit this on size 7s. It's a lovely squishy fabric, and should be very warm. Perhaps too warm for a chemo cap, which it is, but the gentleman does live in South Dakota, so I hope he gets some use out of it. Either way, it's being sent with lots of good will.

I have one more baby hat in mind for my photographer friend but it's not happening tonight. I'm very tired and achy. I'm also doing Sockopalooza 2001. I did this last year - ended up making and sending out a whole bunch of fleece socks for a group of on-line friends. It was sort of crazy but fun, and I'm back to drowning in fleece (damn Joann and its 50% off sales!), so I made the offer again! Now that I have the serger, I'm going to try some new stitches and see if I can eliminate the seams inside. I'm ridiculous excited to play with this.

I'd joke about what a geek I am, but we all know it's true. I just have to embrace it at this point. I'd also say I have to get out more, but I was actually out both Friday (PTA fundraiser at the school, which I worked, very fun) and Saturday night (surprise birthday party for a friend). So, basically, I am a big geek who loves gadgets, tools, and crafting.