Anyway, I've been knitting hats.
That's the hat for Halos of Hope / Buffalo Wool Company. I've discovered that I like mindless stockinette. Just knit round and round. In this case, I've measured how many yards it takes to knit one round (a bit more than 2 yards), counted how many rows I have to knit in the decrease section (23), multiplied to see how many yards I'll need for the decrease section (max of 46 since there are decreases on every other row). A full skein of this yarn is 100 grams = 400 yards. That means one gram is 4 yards (2 rows). So I'll need a max of 11.5 grams to knit the decrease section. I'm weighing my remaining yarn periodically. When I get to 15 grams left, I'll run a lifeline in the hat so I'll have a place to retreat to if I've done my math backwards. (Not impossible. I always had to recheck wordy math problems. I could do division--once I was sure which number went into which.) When I get to 11.5 grams left, I'll start the decreases.
The yarn is nice to knit with, but I've already discovered it's a beast to frog. There are leftover wispy hairs on the yarn. If I didn't know better, I'd say this yarn lived in a house with dogs, but the hairs were there when I opened the package--and I don't have dogs the color of buffalo. The hairs aren't a problem unless you have to frog your knitting. At that point--well, anyone who's ever frogged mohair or angora or another fuzzy yarn knows what the result is like.
The dye in the yarn is lovely. I love the color, and there's just a bit of variation in it so that it's not a flat green. At this point, I have 5.25 inches of hat, with 29.8 grams of yarn left.
Yes, I know there's a stitch marker knitted into the hat. I often do that deliberately to mark something. In this case, I've forgotten why I marked this row. I'll leave the marker there until I remember what the marker was for--or until I finish the hat--and then I'll cut the marker and pull it out. (It's a stretchy plastic hair band: $3 for 500 of them.) (And no, it wasn't supposed to be an end-of-round marker. I haven't bothered to mark the end of the rounds because that doesn't really matter until I start the decrease section.)
And this is my Tornado Hat. It's also destined for Halos of Hope. In addition to losing pretty much everything they owned, cancer patients in Moore, Oklahoma, lost their meds, their drugstores, their doctors' offices, and their hospital. And the hospital lost its supply of chemo hats. Halos of Hope has already sent more than 200 hats to Moore. This one will go to Halos of Hope, and they can send it on to Moore or use it to restock someplace that sent hats to Moore.
The yarn is Bernat Cotton. The initial request was for hats in cotton or cotton blends. Since cotton doesn't stretch well--actually, it stretches perfectly well; it just doesn't un-stretch worth beans--I wanted to find a pattern that didn't rely on stretchy ribbing for its fit. This pattern is called Hurricane Hat because the swirly decreases look like satellite images of a hurricane once you get to the top of the hat.
This is almost mindless knitting. You just have to remember to work an occasional purl bump. (And if I forget, I can fix it with a crochet hook.) I worked on this to keep my hands busy at a baby shower the other night. If I don't keep my hands busy with knitting, they'll be busy with food, which is pleasant but fattening. I need another inch and a half on this hat before I start the decreases: there's no shortage of yarn for this one.
That's Silver, roaching and being a flirt. The dogs had turkey necks again today and it appears they now understand what to do with them.
Trivia:
--Invoiced a client this morning. Tiny invoice. (Boo!)
--Little bit of freelancing today. There are some long-running projects I can work on though, which should get my income up for my next invoice.
--My financial woes haven't fixed themselves, but I took care of something that was about to flare up and be big trouble. I've postponed that trouble until October.
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