Mustard Seed Yarn Lab

Hi All! I apologize for the silence, but work went from dead to crazy busy with lots of overtime, then I went away on a ski vacation in VT with my family (they ski, I knit) and now I’m back and work is dead again, for the time being. So I finally have a moment to post.

I knit a hat while I was in VT. While the rest of the family was skiing out in the cold, I was snug as a bug in the condo with a gorgeous view, knitting and reading A Clash of Kings (which I am loving even more than the first book, A Game of Thrones). The hat I made is for my friend Jason, and it’s the Knotty but Nice hat.  It’s my second go at it. You may remember my 1st attempt just didn’t work, and my son ended up with a new hat instead. Well, this time it worked for the most part.

I dyed the yarn myself, and it’s actually greener than it shows in the picture. This time I used the correct weight of yarn…worsted instead of bulky….and I went up one needle size for the cabling, as the cabling is very tight and not very stretchy.

My biggest mistake was taking the hat to my friend Maiya’s house for a Knit Night. We got to talking and drinking wine, having a great time….then the next day I pulled out the hat to keep going and noticed something didn’t look right. In fact, something looked very wrong. I realized I had knit about 5 rows of cabling and somehow was very off, and hadn’t noticed it at all that night. I have never ripped out ANYTHING to try and fix before…I tink back, not rip out. Well, let me tell you, I was NOT tinking back 5 rows of cabling. So in VT I decided to start over. I ripped and ripped and took apart half of the cabling and then thought, well, maybe I should just TRY to insert my needle back into this thing. And people, I can’t believe it, but it worked! I managed to rip back to a spot and reinsert my needle throughout the entire hat, and it WORKED!! Yaayyy me!

I’m very happy with the way it turned out but the cabling section is still a little tight, and if I were to do it all over again, I would go up 2 needle sizes for that section. I’ll see Jason on Thursday and give it to him then. He may not like it, and that’s fine, I’ll just keep it myself if he doesn’t. Personally, I love it and wouldn’t mind keeping it, or giving it as a gift. He didn’t give much direction as to what style hat he wanted, and gave me free rein, but I have a feeling he was thinking of something more simple.

And now for some Sugarbush VT pictures. These are my favorite ones:

Mike and Emmet ….my favorite picture from the whole trip.

Mike and Nana skiing with Emmet:

The view from our condo:

Emmet’s favorite part of the trip, the Snow Cat ride up the mountain! Here he is with his cousins, getting ready to go up.

Emmet in the Snow Cat…notice the hat? That’s the Knotty but Nice hat #1.

The view from the top:

Cousins in the loft:

Cousins watching a movie:

Swimming on our last day there:

Sigh…I really like being on vacation.

I’m still working on that gorgeous red pair of socks. And since I have no more commissioned projects lined up, I think I’ll see what I feel like knitting next, along with the hexipuffs (my pile is growing) and the sock. Maybe that shawl I mentioned before. Hmmm…..