Ooops...

One of these things is exactly like the other.

Do you see the two identical halves of a snap?  Yes, yes you do.

I carefully cut off the hand-sewn half on the knitting, flipped it and re-sewed it.

Now I have this.

The snap is a clever way to attach the pom-pom to the hat, but I think I prefer the elastic loop method, where the elastic is pulled through the top of the hat and then buttoned around a, well, a button.  Less sewing.

I played yarn chicken with this project because I was using left-over yarn from the second Cowboys and Angels wrap.  I both won and lost.

I still had rows to go before I could start the decreases and I gambled that I could make it because I had made the ribbing section shorter in order to save yarn.  

As it turned out, I bet I could have knit several more rows of ribbing and still made it, so I sort of lost, even though I won and didn't run out of yarn, because now I have so little yarn left over that there's nothing to do with it.  I should have knit on.

And because it's raining and cold today, I finished my socks as well.

It's a good day for hand knit wool socks.

Now, unless I can come up with another knitting distraction, it's on to the sweater.  I've only had the yarn for a year and a half.

OK

So I said that I wasn't going to post any longer, but then I finished this hat:

and realized that I had no place to brag about it put it to show it off.  It's about the millionth Lost Banner Hat by Susan B. Anderson that I've made. They are, as the Yarn Harlot would say, dead easy, so actually no bragging is legitimate.

The yarn is Malabrigo Washted in color Indonesia, and it's the softest hat I've made.

Yes, I could have posted this on good old FB, but I've read on Ravelry that people who do that sometimes get lots of gimmie replies---Can you make me a dozen or so of these hats for my cousin's ex-husband's daughter's ski team?  How do you say NO to that? 

Oh, yes. Nancy Reagan said: Just say "no."

I don't know if it works for drugs, but it should for crafts. 

Anyway, this is my hat for my Ireland trip with my daughters in the fall. They will be so jealous.

Knitting---really!

I have actually been knitting. I have two or three WIPs (works in progress):

Another Lost Banner Hat by Susan Anderson

Seychelles by Susanna IC which will eventually look like this

because I bought exactly the same yarn and beads used in the sample. And because I'm such a master knitter! 

No. I'm not. I bought the pattern and supplies four years ago and then chickened out. It just looked way too complicated. Recently I studied the finished Seychelles on Ravelry, read notes left by the knitters, and decided that I could conquer this. It might take a while but SHE PERSISTS!

And thanks to Sweet Mother of Purl, I do have one finished project!  Yay me!

It is this Anarktis:

It is off the needles and currently blocking. I played yarn chicken and won even though I was using Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Cast Off. I had only this tiny bit of yarn to finish with, but I made it.  

I recently took an internet test to see if I am OCD and according to the test, I am 100% OCD! There are people in my family who would probably say: We told you so!

HOWEVER, I beg to differ even though the test was an official Internet Test. I store my circular needles in their original packaging and when the pattern called for a size six, I pulled out my size six. See? It says size 6 in two places!

When I finished the scarf, I noticed that it was really a good bit smaller than it should have been, and some aggressive blocking has not expanded it to the measurements the pattern indicated it would be.

I checked the needle in my gauge before I put it away, which I SHOULD have done BEFORE I started knitting. It's a size four. That explains the size but I cannot explain how I put the needle in the wrong case...and where is the size six that belongs in here? So how can I be OCD? I'm clearly not.

I bet the size six needle is in the size four package. If I'm even moderately OCD, that's where it should be, right?

Socks and more

While we were in Ireland I wore hand knit socks every day---what a treat. We walked and walked and walked and my Fitbit was very happy with me and smiled every day. Usually it frowns. Judgey Fitbit.

We live in the south, so warm socks aren't much of a necessity most of the year. When I came home from the trip, I finished the Soumak, phew, and because that had taken so l.o.n.g to knit, I have concentrated on quick projects, among them, SOCKS! I am making these from what I believe is called a sock flat, yarn that has been machine knit flat, then hand-painted with dyes, and then stamped with designs. The completed sock is a totally unpredictable pattern of colors. One down, one to go.

I can't find the tag that came with the flat, so if you wanted to knit the same sock, you CAN'T!

(sorry)  (Actually, now you can!  It's Gale's Art Sock blanks on Etsy.)

My second current project is a pair of Honeycomb Wrist Warmers (fingerless mitts) and I love the Malabrigo Rios yarn I am using. Soft, soft, soft. 

And, at the SAME TIME, I am making the Lost Banner Hat from the Donegal Wool my daughter brought me from her trip to Ireland last year. It had not told me what it wanted to be, but after spending time in Ireland, seeing all of the knitwear people there wear, I realized the yarn was meant to be a hat. A hat it shall be.

And again, at the SAME TIME, I am making the Pure/Aran out of the softest non-cashmere yarn ever, WOOLFOLK FÅR.  

AND, I am making, at the SAME TIME, The Joker and the Thief. How can I keep all of this straight, you might ask. I must be a genius, you say. Why thank you! I must be then!

And since we were talking about socks and walking, and I was, a while ago, here is some walking.

These are the Cliffs of Moher, and they are spectacular. You can walk for miles and miles along them, and the National Trust has put upright slabs of rocks along the path, about ten feet or so from the edge of the cliffs. However, the brave or the crazy, I'm not sure which, choose to walk on a well-worn path on the cliff side of the rocks. It is really windy up there, and I wonder how often someone gets blown over the edge. It must happen, just based on the odds with so many people walking on the wrong side. 

Not MY thumb.  I'm a better photographer than that!

Odd how the publicity for the place doesn't mention the falling off the cliffs death toll. 

There are warning signs, but clearly, people disregard them.

And more walking---this time to get to the Carrick-a-Rede bridge. This is a better photo of it than mine was.

This is just a part of the long walk in to the bridge:

And THIS is the climb down to the bridge. It was scarier to climb this than it was to walk on the bridge itself.

Carrick-a-Rede is at the very northern part of Northern Ireland, and while we were so far north, we went to a couple of towns, including Belfast. Kind of a strange place, Belfast. It's an industrial city with a huge focus on its past, primarily its wars. 

This street is locally known as RPG street because of all of the rocket-propelled-grenades launched at it by the British, during the Troubles. The Troubles come up a lot.

And this photo is of the wall that separates Protestants from Catholics (? not quite sure how this all works out) at night. During the daytime, the gates are open so that people can go to work, school, run errands, and shop, but voters keep choosing to close the gates at night. Just in case???

This is one of two huge structures that were used during the ship-building era in Belfast. They aren't in use now except as a tourist attraction (? not that exciting, Belfast) since ship building has given way to the construction of wind turbines. Belfast is unaccountably proud of the fact that the Titanic was built there. Every tourist shop, every post card display, has souvenirs stating in some form or another:  Belfast --- Home of the Titanic. 

And now, for something completely different, but potentially not more cheerful than wars and deaths from falling off of cliffs, a sign in a tiny cemetery in a tiny town somewhere in The Republic of Ireland, aka (according to me), Southern Ireland.  

I think it's a DIY cemetery! Based on what I saw of Irish tv, the residents are really fond of reality tv.  Maybe this place will get its own show.  

Probably not.

I hope not.