The Mad Hatter

Did you know that Lewis Carroll never called him the Mad Hatter? He was just the Hatter. And "mad as a hatter."



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.

Busy Saturday

I haven't posted for a little more than a week. There's financial stuff hanging over my head, but it's not something I'm going to discuss on a public blog. It was/is so annoying, though, that it's playing a major role in my thoughts, and it's hard to conjure up a blog post while I tiptoe around money issues. But let's see what I can do here...


The dogs touched each other while sleeping.
This is an accident, not a detente.

The dogs have had turkey necks twice since my last post. The first time, the dogs finally ate the necks without a problem; then Silver came in and upchucked hers on the carpet. She cleaned it up herself, and I discouraged Sam from trying to help. The second time they got necks, everybody ate, no one threw up. We may be making progress. More necks tomorrow.

At his age (he's 13), Sam has trouble staying cool, even with limited trips outside and with the AC running in the condo. But he understands what to do with a box fan: lie in front of it. Once he cools off, he moves to a comfy bed.



The baby sweater is finished, but I'm holding off on the photos. This blog posts to Facebook, and the mom is on Facebook. The shower is on Sunday evening (the 23rd), and I'll come edit this post to add photos after that. (So there, Cherelle!)


(It's Sunday night, and the baby shower is over.
I can post this now.)

I started knitting a Curiosity shop sample for Pat at Lovin' Knit. Pat chose Cascade Heritage 150 Paint yarn in "fall foliage" as the yarn. I got off to a good start, but I've had to put it aside for a bit.





I put it aside because on Facebook last Friday, a request was made for 25 volunteers willing to knit a hat for Halos Of Hope (chemo hats for cancer patients). The yarn is being supplied by Buffalo Wool Company, and we're supposed to mail the hats back to them within 30 days. (Buffalo yarn is pricey, and this is very generous of them.) I sent off an email. I didn't hear from them and didn't know if I'd made the cut of volunteers until I went to the mailbox Friday and discovered this:



The yarn is half a skein of Tracks in the colorway Mojito. Tracks is a sockweight superwash fingering that's 90% merino wool, 10% buffalo. There was a suggested pattern we could use, but I'm not really fond of it: it may be fine, but if I had cancer and was losing my hair, the last thing I'd want to wear is a hat that screams "I have cancer and I'm losing my hair!" Instead, I've chosen a nice, stylish slouchy hat pattern that I hope might be acceptable to any cancer patient, including a man or a teenager.



As it happens, Interweave is having their summer book sale, and I had already shopped and put a couple of eBooks of hat patterns in my shopping cart. When the Tracks yarn arrived, I just paid for the books, downloaded the PDFs, and got to work. There's a little uncertainty regarding exactly how much yarn I received (it's a "half-skein"--a full ball is 400 yards/100g, by weight (63.3g) this may be 250 yards) and precisely how much yarn the hat requires (the pattern calls for a yarn that comes 459 yards to a ball--but does it use 459 yards?). There'll be measuring, weighing, and lifelines involved--just to keep this interesting. (One thing I learned when I accidentally dropped my needles out of row 3 of the ribbing and had to rip back and start over: this yarn doesn't frog happily.)

And Craftsy had a special yarn sale on June 21. I bought 20 balls of Cascade 220 Superwash Tweed at an excellent price. The yarn is 10 balls of Chocolate Tweed and 10 balls of Ocean Tweed; the colors are nice, and even will work well together. Since there are 10 balls in each color, I'll be able to get more completed hats (for Hats for Sailors) from this yarn than if had I bought all different colors since leftovers from a couple of hats can combine to make another hat.

Today was a meet and greet in the Marietta Square. Seventeen greyhounds! Great crowd, lovely weather, and good donations. Since we got home a little after noon, Silver has gotten up to eat, drink, and pee; she's been unconscious the rest of the time.