Finished Knit: Another Hat

I was hoping to share another handmade gift this week, but I did Something to my back that spread to my hips, and Tuesday was pretty much a complete loss, as I gave in to the inevitable and lay on the couch with my hot sock--a fleecy wool sock filled with rice and sewn shut, given to me during my first pregnancy. You put it in the microwave and then hold it against the pain, and the nice thing is it's portable, too. I've been cuddling with my hot sock for a couple days now, because I need to be functional for Thanksgiving tomorrow, when I am (drumroll, please!) roasting a whole turkey for the first time. I've roasted just the breast, and I've roasted whole chickens, so it's really just a difference in scale. Still, I hope I don't mess it up.

So, I didn't make candles this week, like I'd hoped, but the hot sock fits right behind my back while I'm knitting, so that's no problem. I made the girl a hat and mittens.

We woke up to a deluge Wednesday morning, so these photos are inside and poorly lit. She picked out black yarn for her mittens--Cascade Lana D'Oro, which is like knitting with butter it's so soft--and since I have some leftovers in the same yarn in purple and a deep rosy pink, I thought I'd do some stripes. But her mittens are so small that the stripes were narrow and the jog was really obvious and it pulled a little funny when I twisted in the new yarn...I didn't like it. So I frogged back and made the mittens all black.

Then I decided, since she wanted a new hat too (I am a slave to my children's woolly winter needs), to make another Vertigo Hat. This is a little smaller than a small, since I cast on fewer stitches (to make it shorter). I still made eight wedges though, four in black and two each in pink and purple.

So sorry for the poor lighting. It pains me a bit. Anyway, so the stripe sequence goes black-pink-black-purple-black-pink-black-purple, and I'm quite pleased with it. It's cute as anything, isn't it?

It's very handy, having matching hats for all three kids. Different colors, yes, but the side-to-side striping is distinctive enough that I can usually pick all three kids out in a crowd, plus it's obvious to other people that they go together. I can always locate my boys immediately at school pickup!