Thursday, February 05, 2015

Creating the Calm Cowl

Creating the Calm Cowl and really warm hats!

I took a little fall on Sunday and messed up my leg. I just kept ignoring the pain, until I couldn’t walk. It was such a bummer for me, I have been trying to hit at least 8ooo steps a day on my fitbit now I am only getting 2000 and that’s on crutches.  My husband is now way ahead of me in milage so once my leg is healed I am really going to have catch up.


All this down time has lead to some serious knitting and crocheting.   

The hat is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Knitting Without Tears" book, it's a really easy hat to knit, you cast on 91 stitches and knit until it's the desired length, then you mark off 7 decreases and decrease every other row. It knits up quickly and my husband really appreciates having a nice warm hat.  I knit it with Knitpicks wool of the Andes in a blue and am working a another in Patons Classic Wool Worsted in Grey Mix. Elizabeth's book recommends knitting two and then putting one inside the other so that's what I am working on now. The book is really no nonsense and straight forward.  I have a thing for hats, my son, Michael loves to wear hats so I am always looking for a new hat to make.  
  

A good view of the crown of the hat 

The brim rolls up on the hat


It's a quick and easy knit and using wool makes it nice and warm. I plan on making more of these in the near future.
This is my year to have all the children together for Christmas.  We are looking to rent a vacation home in Michigan for the festivities. It will be nice to have all the children together, they haven't been all together since Tricia's wedding.  Since that time we have added 3 new members to the family, 2 grand daughters and a a daughter-in-law  or as my mother-in-law likes to say a daughter-in-love. Tim will be home from his mission so we will really all be together!  I can't wait. I have managed to acquire a bit of yarn here in China so I will be making quite a bit of the presents this year.  I am working on photo books and knitted items. Should make for a fun Christmas, I love giving presents to my children that I have made, I spend the entire time making the gift thinking about the person I am making it for.

The first gift I have completed is the Calm Cowl    by indigoDot....., it is a free crochet pattern that I found on Ravelry, my favorite knitting site. It turned out beautifully.  Although it is not as full as it is in the pictures with the pattern.  I used a wonderful light green yarn that I acquired here in China, it has a nice drape and the single crochet, chain one stitch really shows off to an advantage with this yarn.  I also plan to make a hat to go with the cowl for the Christmas present.  I just downloaded the Hurricane Hat Pattern, also found on Ravelry.  I will be using #7 needles on a 16" circular to knit the hat.  I love these needles for knitting hats.  I first started using them for hats I knit for this past christmas. The Seedling Hat by Jen Lucas (cost of $5.50) looked difficult but was so easy to make. I ended up knitted 2 of them will probably make more.

Michael wearing his new hat!
as the hat is being blocked.


This one is made from left over yarn from a christmas stocking.