Pennsylvania hat

Inspired by Sheldon's red knitted hat on "The Big Bang Theory" and fashioned after designer Britta Graham's Textured Sherpa Earflap Hat, while on a trip to Pennsylvania, on a whim I bought a skein of Red Heart Cafe Latte yarn and started crocheting a winter hat in a similar shape as Sheldon's.

I wanted the crown to have a lot of texture, so I used a fpdc pattern, then switched to a smoother pattern for the brim and earflaps.

All that's left to do is to add a chunky tassel to the end of each earflap, but my ambition has stalled for the summer, so this hat will hibernate until the weather turns cold again.

I credit Britta's wonderfully written designs with helping me learn to crochet several years ago, and I highly recommend them to everyone! :-)

Here's a look at Sheldon's red hat:

Noodling with needles

My friend Terri sent me this funny. 😄

Shalom cardigan free pattern

I rarely venture into the brave world that is knitting or crocheting apparel items. Like many other people out there, I like the relatively quick satisfaction that comes from making hats and other small pieces that can be completed in, say, an evening or two.

But I recently had a rare weekend to myself and took advantage of it by making the Shalom Cardigan in what I estimate was 14 hours of work over two days.

This is an excellent free pattern designed by Meghan McFarlane. The pattern is VERY well written and error free. It includes nice touches that I appreciate, like a total stitch count on rows where additions have occurred. (So I can feel confident that things are progressing according to plan each step of the way!)

This project is great for stash-busting. It’s amazing to be able to create an apparel item from only about 1.5 skeins (or less than approximately 400 yards) of yarn.

Casting on:

Top yoke:

Sleeve openings made, starting on the body:

I like how the Red Heart Coffee Fleck yarn kind of matches my knitting needles:

Newborn owl hat

I knitted this sweet newborn owl hat for my friend Rose's baby boy Dominic.

I didn't really use a pattern for the hat portion. I just cast on with blue on 4mm needles and started knitting the ribbing, then switched to gray for the stockinette part at the top. A "sack"-style hat like this is knitted straight (no decreases for the crown), so it's very simple to do. I grafted the top seam and added a strand of each yarn color for the long tassels at the "ears."

I followed the instructions for the crocheted eyes and beak from Sarah Zimmerman's free Owl Hat pattern.

Hello, Baby Cardigan free pattern

I had a random skein of Caron Simply Soft Paints in Baby Brights Ombre 9801 sitting around and needed to find a project for it.

Then along came the pattern for this sweet baby cardigan at the Spud & Chloe Blog: Hello, Baby. Here's the link to my project page at Ravelry.

When I first stared working the pattern, I struggled a lot with getting the increases on the yoke portion to turn out right. I don’t think the pattern was written poorly; I was just having a difficult time concentrating and getting the correct stitch counts. After starting over four times, though, I finally got the stitch counts right. Whew! It’s such a sweet little cardi, I didn’t want to give up on it.

Update: Now I’m basically just stuck on the last step, which is a knitted-on I-cord edging. I’ve never done I-cord before, so … until I have the time to study up on how it’s done, this project is going to hibernate at 95 percent done. Sigh!