Holy Cow It's Not a Sock

I know, it's strange. I haven't posted knitting pictures of much other than socks lately. Sorry about that, they're just so portable that they tend to dominate my knitting world. I also love sock yarn, and tend to have it just lying around waiting to turn into socks, so they are convenient. Not to mention all the brilliant patterns out there. Anyway today I have sock yarn that is instead becoming a hat.

I'm undertaking a few baby knits to welcome my newest niece into the world. Traci's daughter Lily is due in at the end of the ever so chilly Texas June, so of course she needs tons of knits to keep warm. (That should be read with severe sarcasm to those of you who are not from/in Texas.) I know she doesn't need to be bundled against the snow or anything, but that's not going to stop me. My only hope is that there are overly active air conditioners to guard against or that these items still fit when the summer swelter has passed.
The first project will be posted on later, because I haven't photo'd it yet. I was too enamored with this new yarn so it got it's picture taken first, even though it is further from completion. I mean, I even took it's picture before it was wound up into a ball. I would have loved to make Lily a jacket with this yarn, but a few things stopped me. 1. This is wool and wool is warm, and Texas is warm, so Lily would melt like chocolate in a pocket. 2. Although it claims to be machine washable I wouldn't want to risk a felty mess with it. 3. There was only one skein, and I'm not sure it would have made an entire jacket.

Instead I'm making a baby hat for the third time (Simon and Georgia were the babies who got the first two). That's how much I like this pattern. It's quick and fun to knit, but also I like the way it looks when it's done. I've worked the beginning rib so far, and now there's a couple inches of plain stockinette, then the fun begins with decreases and purl ridges. From past experience with the pattern I know that I'm going to have a ton of this yarn left after doing the hat. I'm excited about making some baby socks for Lily with all this left over yarn. I'm curious to see what a smaller diameter will do with the color repeats.

The pattern is available for free at Hill Country Weavers. You can usually find the store sample attached to a copy of the pattern living in sock land.