Blocking Pin Review & Candy Cane Hats

The new issue of MagKnits is up and I'm a little bummed that it is mostly stuff for babies, since I have no babies for whom to knit (kids, yes; babies, no). I do really like this Medusa hat though. I'll have to find some relative who wants one, as I am not really a hat-wearing person.

I finished knitting the red scarf today. I knit it in two halves and will be grafting the halves together tomorrow hopefully. It's blocking now. Pics tomorrow.

Speaking of blocking, I got to use my new blocking pins that Santa brought me in my stocking. They are the Clover ones with the double pins and the pink and blue tops. I think these are the overpriced ones they were selling in that store that had never heard of blocking your knitting. [Price is no object to Santa, apparently.]

Well, I'm sorry to report that these pins suck royally. Or, at least, they do with my blocking board (which is the big gray one they sell at Patternworks). These Clover pins bend way too easily and are hard to push in. I finally got myself to AC Moore this evening and purchased some good old T-pins (40 for a whole $2.59 -- whatta bargain). Why did I not think of looking in the sewing aisle earlier? Especially when certain people even suggested I go to a fabric store. Must have been my unnatural fear of fabric stores. That and the fact that I don't know where any are. Anyway, I'm happy now -- I bought three boxes of pins. So now I can go super-anal and pin every inch of whatever I block. [You know I will.]

Went to see King Kong today -- great movie. Tried knitting while watching, but that was kind of a bust. Got about two inches of the wrist warmers I'm working on done, but then I got all messed up and there were too many dark scenes to sort it out. Anyway, there was a lot of action that needed to be concentrated upon -- not a good knitting movie.

Well, I will leave you with a picture of a hat I made as a Christmas gift for my niece. Here are the details:

Pattern: Candy Cane Hat from Handknit Holidays (love that book)

Yarn: Cascade 220

Needles: US 7

Mods: I only did a nubbin at the top, instead of the long knotted umbilical cord sort of thing in the pattern. My 16-yr-old half brother commented that this made it look like a breast, but he is a perv, so I am ignoring him. I think it's cute. I also added the braid sort of thing at the bottom of the stripes. This is done by purling while alternating colors and stranding the unused color on the right side so it forms little slanting lines. I can't find my notes, but it looks like I did two rows of this, stranding the colors the opposite way in the 2nd row. This is a cool technique I learned at a great Annie Modesitt class at Webs a couple of months ago.

Notes: This hat was fun to make and I love the way it came out. If any friend/relative wants one, let me know -- I'd be glad to make another.

In fact, I liked it so much I already have made a variation of it for my daughter. Here I used up some old Cascade 220 remnants I had lying around. I ran out of the navy blue yarn halfway through and had to switch to gray for the top of the hat. This didn't turn out so great because the gray doesn't have enough contrast with the heathery blue so you can't really see the swirl on the top. But, hey, I used up leftover yarn, and that was the goal. I also added a little checkerboard strip to the bottom, surrounded by more of those braid things.

This was the very first pompom I have ever made. Not sure I enjoy making those. I did learn that more yarn is better when it comes to pompoms.