Knitting Diversions

Last weekend I headed down to the toe of the state to visit family and to attend a baby shower. A good friend is expecting her first baby in early March. In addition to a gift from her registry, I knitted this hat. She is having a boy, and they have decided on the middle name Patrick, so I thought green would be appropriate. This pattern is the umbilical cord hat from Stitch n' Bitch. I've made it quite a few times now, in various colorways. I'd call it my go-to baby gift at this point. I can knit it up in an evening while watching a movie or two. After making a couple I felt totally familiar with this baby hat concept. I'll happily do stockinette in the round all day long, and I love a project with decreases at the end. Yep, love that mindless knitting. It's easy enough that I've made some fun variations, like pumpkin hats with ribbing for October babies. This one was straight from the pattern though. It's even the suggested yarn, in a different colorway.


I had this yarn in my fairly meager stash (Leftover from making those pumpkin hats, I think). I know some knitters have a tendency to let their stash of yarn get out of control, but I'm very project oriented with my yarn buying. I tend to buy yarn for something I want to knit and then knit it before I buy more yarn. Most of my"stash" consists of leftover odds and ends. I think I only have one skein that I bought for a project that I never got around to knitting.

I do have a couple of works in progress right now, though. This little hat was a quick diversion from a bigger project I'm working on. I'm knitting another baby gift at the moment that I hope to finish and get mailed off by next weekend. It's rather bigger than a hat, so it's taking more than just an evening of knitting. Also, I still have a sock in progress. It probably would have been finished long since, but I need to buy more needles. I'm too hard on tiny sock needles apparently. I'm on my sixth sock and I've snapped 3 of six needles. They are rather toothpick-like, being wooden number ones. Maybe I should get some aluminum ones so I won't break them again. Once I finish the other project I'll have to track some down, so my husband can have toasty hand-knit socks before winter is over. Instead of getting new ones, I started that other project, which I should probably get back to now, actually.