Keep your books warm and your ears warmer

I finished "Kim's hat" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts last week, but I haven't had time to a) blog or b) take pictures of it. And the weather has been miserable and overcast lately -- or rather, it's sunny when I'm busy and overcast when I have a free moment and reach for the camera. Anyway, hat: I've been wanting a hat with ear flaps for a while and I'm very pleased with the way they turned out They looked huge as I was knitting them, but apparently I just have no realistic concept of exactly how big my ears are. (They're massive.) The only alteration I made to the pattern was in the depth/height of the hat. While my ears are large, my head is disproportionately small. I knit the hat according to the pattern (7 inches before the decreases) and I had a good two inches of empty space between the crown and my head, so I frogged back until I had about 5 inches of hat and re-knit the decreases. Perfect! And, of course, it's perfect for keeping my beloved and much be-scribbled-in Norton Shakespeare warm. A warm book is a happy book, after all. (Especially when it needs some lovin' after being chewed on by a cat with distinct tastes in drama.) But really, I just like playing with the tassels.

Long winter's nap.

(Viggo wishes you a Merry Christmas and wants to know if you're finishing that sandwich.) It's been busy here (as it has everywhere else, if the silent blogs are anything to go by), but I wanted to post and say hello. Items of note: 1. The Jamesey was a success. My lumberjack brother loves it. I finished the last sleeve at 4 am Christmas morning and finished seaming at Christmas dinner as my little cousins were joyously handing out presents. It was frantic, but I was determined not to ruin Christmas. I was VICTORIOUS. More details later, after I've taken some nicer photos. 2. Today is my birthday. 24 of your Earth years. 3. I made some new banners for the blog, hoping to do a swanky random image grab like Cara's. I can't find a script for this that would work in Blogger, where I do not have my own hosting space available. Any suggestions, Blogger bloggers? Happy (continuing) Holidays! Now stop reading blogs and go have some more pie.

Orange you glad I finished something?

Daaaaaaaah. DAAAAAAAAAH. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! (bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum) I started these hats back in July at the request of a really nice guy I know via a message board (that is in no way as creepy as it sounds). He's got two little boys and they loved the hat that I made for a mutual friend of ours. So he politely requested two hats for the kids and then waited FIVE MONTHS while I knit and stopped, knit and stopped, ran out of yarn, couldn't find more yarn, moved, knit some more, etc. But now they're finished and cute as orange buttons. These hats are actually the reason I started this blog back in September of 2005 (sweet sassy molassy, has it really been a year?).* The pattern linked there is not well written, the yarn is Red Heart, and after nosing around the knitting blogosphere for a year now I'm a little embarrassed of it. But hey, the hats make people happy and that's what matters, right? They're supposed to look like Spacehoppers, a toy that doesn't exist in the US but is apparently iconic for Brits who grew up in the 70s and 80s. Looks like fun, eh? So now I can actually take something off my list of WIPs to the left there. It's been a while. Next up: Jamesey. Really. I'm going to finish this thing before I head home on the 19th. *(I know it has. I just wanted to use the phrase "sweet sassy molassy.")