On Friday, The Teen and I went with a group of his friends and their parents to tour the University of Oregon. We had a great info session and tour. No pictures, because that would have been embarrassing, right?
Lucky me; I wasn’t the driver so I had four hours of car knitting, round trip. I didn’t want to work on my shawl, because I didn’t want to have to keep track of the pattern. And I wasn’t ready to start the April Fool’s socks yet. But I did knit all of the garter stitch band for a Quincy hat.
This is Quincy in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted, the color is Red Hot Passion. My sister requested this hat for her birthday. I finished the garter stitch band in the car, and finished the hat at home that evening. A one day project!
I originally started this hat after Christmas with Lamb’s Pride Bulky, but even though the yarn knit to gauge, it was much heavier than the specified Classic Elite Ariosa. I wasn’t happy with it, and it made my hands tired to knit to that gauge. After avoiding it for a couple months, I decided to start over with the thinner yarn. The worsted is a little light for this project; the perfect yarn would have been somewhere between the two. But it was all about the color; Sis wanted it to be the very red of the OXO Cable fingerless mitts (see sidebar) I designed for her Christmas present.
Here it is with the original bulky garter stitch band underneath. The first one was close to done, but I was running out of yarn, and didn’t love it enough to buy more. That’s telling. Using the worsted on a size 9 needle resulted in a slightly floppy hat, but that’s what I had on the trip. I think I may felt it down just a little. It still needs to be blocked, anyway. My hands were much happier knitting to this gauge!
What else did I do with my weekend?
I put a new trellis on the front of the house, and planted a clematis vine on it. I’m looking forward to vivid purple flowers. Our previous trellis had a climbing hydrangea growing on it, but it wasn’t happy with its newly sunny location (we took down a huge birch tree a few years ago; it was stressed after being hit by a pickup truck). The hydrangea and its trellis has gone to live at a friend’s house. Everybody wins!
What did you do with your weekend?