FO: Topi hat

It's summer! (I believe I can say that now without causing a snow storm or something.)



(Are my photos too dark? I have one of those fancy flat monitors, and it seems to lie about how light things look.)

My wrist is not getting much better, but I can knit a bit every once in a while without destroying it. I'm going to have to be careful, though, because I have six exams during this week and the next and most of them include writing essays. Thank you, Finnish educational system!

Remember when I vented about my faulty copy of No Sheep? Well, the store did take it back and ordered a new copy from the publisher. I got a proper copy a week or so back, and I loke it to little bits. I read it straight through the first chance I got.

***

I finished Topi way over a month ago, but I kept forgetting to take pictures. I finally had the chance today, so here it is. :D



(Please excuse my dopey expression. That's the best I can do after writing two essays at school.)

Pattern: Topi, from Knitty
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in Phantom (153), less than one ball
Needles: Circulars of a mysterious size. If I had to guess, I'd say 3mm/US2½. Aluminium.



Interestingly enough, I took this photo myself, but I still look like I completely failed to notice the camera.

I knit the hat because I kept getting blinded by the sun while waiting for the bus. It worked up really quickly, and I rather love it. I had a bit of trouble with the cast-on, though, and couldn't figure out the instructions in the pattern, so I did a quick google and found this tutorial, which worked for me.



I really love the way the slipped-stitch rib looks.



I'm also ridiculously fond of the way the top of the hat spirals. The purl ridge is sort of cute, too. (Also, photographing the top of your own head is rather tricky.)



This is what I wore with it when it was a bit colder. It's been too windy lately, and I also got sunglasses with the proper sort of lenses for my eyes. I'm a bit sad the sun washed out the print on my bag; I'm really fond of the bag. (I bought it from the shop at the Science Museum in London. It's got a drawing of an old-school VW Transporter, with bits cut off so you can see some of the guts. It's like this one, but without the text.)

My stash is bloating. Not that I mind.

Now, I go to Upper Secondary school. I guess. I've always been a bit fuzzy about such things. Anyway, around here the school year is divided into five periods with different subjects and courses and stuff. We have all the exams, up to seven, during seven consecutive days, but nothing else. That means so much free time it's only barely funny. (You're supposed to study for upcoming exams, but I simply can't spend that much time reading the books over and over again without going crazy, and I do pretty well anyway.) That, in turn, means that I have the time to go to yarn stores.

So, yes, most of this post is going to be complete yarn pr0n. Yay!



Two balls of Regia sock yarn. Of course I managed to get two different weights, but I think I can mess around with needle sizes enough to make it work. I'm going to have to hunt for a ball of yellow and a ball of turquoise, so I can make the Tiptoe socks. The green I'm going to get from the leftovers of this ball:



That's a one-hundred-gram ball of OnLine (OnLinie?) Supersocke in a really, really great green. I visited one of the three yarn stores I go to, with no intention of buying anything, but then I saw this, and, well, I can never resist a good green. It's going to become a pair of Pembrokeshire Pathways socks.

The store I got that from is the smallest of the three, but they have lots of good, cheap sock yarn. The second one has Colinette Jitterbug and Skye and some basic yarns in tons of colours. The third one, which is my favourite, is the largest, the farthest away, and the only one that stocks Rowan. (I'm a Rowan Ho, can you tell?)

This is from the second one.



Colinette Jitterbug in Mardi Gras. Jitterbug is the only handpaint available around here, so it's a good thing I love the yarn itself as much as I do. (I just finished my Snakes on a Sock, FO post forthcoming.)

And this is from the third shop.



A ball of Rowan Felted Tweed. I bought this for swatchy purposes, mostly because I didn't have enough money to buy an entire cardigan's worth. Eventually, though, I'm going to knit Mrs. Darcy with it. I have no chance of getting gauge, but I'm not afraid of a tiny bit of math. I actually rather love math. :D

I think a part of why I love Rowan so much is their ballbands. So wonderful. (Also, Finnish craft mags occasionally translate Rowan patterns, and I've loved most of them so far.) I was going to see if I could persuade myself to buy a cheaper yarn that has the exact same fibre content as the Felted Tweed, but it was just so much uglier. Oh well.

I have actually done some knitting, too. I finished the socks I was working on, for example, and cast on the Felted Tweed, and worked on Tempting II. Photographic evidence:



I'm most of the way through the body and still a bit worried about running out of yarn. I think it'll be enough, though.



It's a Topi hat. I knit it in two days and did a few mods to be able to call it a swatch.

I knit the top as set, though with more increases, and then knit the straight part flat. I was halfway down the brim when I realised I had skipped a bit of the instructions. At that point, I safety-pinned the hat together and tried it on. The result? It looked like a shower cap. My flat gauge and circular gauge are so drastically different the hat flared out and was then pulled back in by the ribbing. That and the screwy brim were all it took to make me rip it. Of course, it took me an entire James Bond movie to un-tangle the ball and wind it into a center-pull ball by hand. How I managed to knot it that badly I'll never know. I'm just special that way, I guess.

Most random photo ever:



It's my tape measure. Yes, I only have one. Yes, I've had to for a few years. I'm fairly certain I'm going to lose it sometime in the near future, because I simply can't keep track of my things. Also, it's starting to fall apart.