In my move onto Mastodon from Twitter, I ended up connecting with some new fiber arts folks, and learned of the #FastenOffYAL that was taking place during December. It’s a celebration of designers and yarns who offer their products off Ravelry, and a space where those who aren’t able to use the site anymore can connect and chat. Anyway, while perusing the database of designers and patterns that were available on the FastenOff website, a Woolly Wormhead hat caught my daughter’s eye: Beelore. She thought it looked like a Christmas tree, and I realized that I had some very old Berroco Ultra Alpaca in “Pea Soup Mix” as well as some leftover red Malabrigo Rios from M’s old red vest, and one thing led to another, and…
…Yep, it sure does look like a Christmas tree, doesn’t it? I really love the contrast between the soft, heathered green and the shinier look of the red superwash yarn. The texture makes me think of Dr. Seuss. I just am so tickled with it!! I haven’t had a chance to get a good photo of my daughter wearing it, other than this one that I snuck while she was building Legos in her pajamas:
It turns out I really, really enjoy knitting contrast-color tucks. Like, REALLY. And something about the knitting of the hat was just utterly soothing on a sensory level. So just about as soon as I bound of my daughter’s hat, I dug through my stash to see what I could come up with for a hat for myself. I turned up a partial skein of Malabrigo Rios in “Whale’s Road”, leftover from my Paris’s Scarf, and a partial skein of Cascade 220 in “Sapphire Heather”, leftover from the “swatch” sweater that I knit back when my friend Chawne and I did a sweater-quilt swap. (I think I got the better end of that exchange! Chawne is amazing quilt artist!). I went a size up from the one I made for my kid, and it really didn’t take me long at all before I had a hat of my own:
I love the way the dark purples and blues look against the medium heathered blue of the Cascade 220 yarn! And of course, these colors suit me quite a bit better than bright red would!
The pointy shape of the hat is so charming – I feel like a little elf or something!
A little blueberry swirl of an elf!
These hats have absorbed so much of my end-of-semester stress energy. They’ve been exactly what my mind and hands needed to soothe themselves – color, texture, plain stockinette, and a little bit of silliness!
I taught my last day of classes yesterday, and am now in what feels a bit like the calm before a storm; my first group of students will submit Final Portfolios at the end of the day today, and my next groups will submit them at the end of the day Friday, so from tomorrow morning onward, I’ll be in grading crunchtime, since I need to submit my grades by 5pm on the 21st. I don’t just NEED to do that, I also want to, because the 21st is the Solstice, and that’s the holiday that’s most important to me. So anyway, I’m trying to take it easy today, because I know the next 6 days are going to be draining. And honestly, Winter Break in general isn’t going to be much of a break – I’ve got to prep all of my classes and be ready to be back in the classroom on the 11th of January, which really doesn’t feel very far away at all!
Which makes today the perfect time to cast on for a new project, right? Ha! I’ve been seeing Pressed Flowers all over the place lately – the shawl, the hat, and the sweater, and I find the slip-stitch design absolutely enchanting. I’ve been going back and forth about which of the three Pressed Flowers designs I wanted to make, and trying to think about what would be doable with the yarn that I have in my stash. While digging through it to find the yarns for my Beelore, I realized that if I used the green Lichen yarn from my Ysolda care package, plus the pair of Madtosh DK skeins in “Esoteric” that I was given in an exchange years ago and for which I hadn’t yet found the perfect project, I actually had enough for a shawl. And I *adore* the combination of acid green and dark teal, so I think it’ll be a winner! This morning, I made it through the set-up section:
Isn’t it going to be lovely? I think the contrast between the more rustic (and non-superwash) Lichen yarn and the slightly heavier, much smoother Madtosh DK is really neat, and the pattern is super fun to knit. Will I actually wear a big flowery shawl? That remains to be seen, but it definitely would match quite a few things in my wardrobe.
Other projects on my needles right now, which I don’t want to forget about:
- Joy Mitts for my friend. These are finally almost finished – just need to do the ribbing on one of them, the thumbs on both, and then weave in ends and block. I hope to finish these in the next couple of days.
- Vita de Vie in white Beaverslide Sport/Sock. Definitely want to get back to this one soon. Hopefully I can figure out where I stopped! Pretty sure it was right before I needed to split for the neckline.
- Birch in grey Knitpicks Capretta. I think I’ll love wearing this sweater, but the knitting is kinda tedious. Might be a good project to work on when we watch movies over the break?
- Waterbearer Cardigan in Hillesvåg Sølje. I was being really good about keeping track of where I was in the pattern on my iPad, so should be able to pick back up where I left off, but this one requires more attention than I’m likely to have any time soon.
I feel like I have total squirrel-brain right now (speaking of which, have you noticed how fat and fluffy the squirrels are right now? I know they need to be, because winter is coming/already here, but their roundness brings me such delight!). My mind is in so many places – dreaming up future knits, future sewing projects, future music projects, future possible new classes I could design and teach…and I do love this very busy creative brain of mine, but it probably needs to come back down to earth so that I can get through all of the grading that awaits me. For now, though, I’m going to try to enjoy this brief calm before the storm.
whit::knits 
Loved this post!