Skill Mastery: Gin & Tonic Hat

I've wanted a nice hat to wear for a while now, but I didn't feel comfortable enough in my knitting skills to do something fancy. I found the pattern for Gin & Tonic over at Knitted Bliss. It was really cute and seemed easy enough to do.

Isn't it darling? You can see all of my notations and yarn choice on my ravelry project page. I had to teach myself how to properly knit a "daisy stitch" which was easier than I had expected but also a pain in the ass because I knit rather tightly. Can't be helped, but I had to remind myself repeatedly to loosen up.

I realized, as I started knitting up one for my sister, that I actually shortened the pattern. Doh! It still fits well, it's just not as slouchy as it's supposed to be. I wear this hat all the time now. It's become a staple in my wardrobe for chilly days. Keeps you warm on cold days, but not too warm on nice days.

-A.

Skill Mastery: Arm Knitting

Learned a new trick this week, Arm Knitting! I'm always looking for something new to try so when this tutorial showed up on my screen I had to give it a shot. Knit a chunky scarf in 30 minutes? Yes, please!

And this was only after 10 minutes!

It was very simple and super fun! It took a few minutes to get the hang of it because I kept twisting the stitches in the wrong direction. I had these extra skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Charcoal laying around from an old project. You have to knit two strands together (as you can see in the picture) and I only ended up using half of each skein. Plenty left over to make another one!

My sister took the first one before I could get a good picture of it (figures!), but here's the second one! Instead of the six stitches that I "cast on" for the first one, this one is ten stitches wide. I like it much better.

(Modeled by Me, Photos by L. Jamieson @ Willowwrenn)

-A.