Everybody's out at the Quidditch Pitch...!

First a wave ::waves!:: at the HPKCHC folks who have been dropping by. Nice to see y'all! Now, on to the regularly-scheduled post...

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the HPKCHC "Hats Off" Quidditch challenge. I'm first alternate - meaning I have the sticks & string to make lots of hats, but our first-stringer will probably be OK & rack up lots of points for the Slytherin firsties. All my Quidditch points will have to come from my First Aid (that's the First Year team name) work, and for regular Quidditch, the team theme is "Warmth".

"Whether we provide physical warmth for those who can’t get it, like babies, homeless, or animals in cold cages, or warmth of the heart for friends, children, or soldiers away from home, we aim to give warmth where the world leaves us cold!"

So, remember that yarn I showed you last Friday? It's turning into Jayne Hats (link to Paula's pattern, which seems to give the best result, here). Veronica at Fibre Space looked at me like I was a bit nuts (and she sees a LOT of knitting crazy) for getting three sets of size 10.5 DPNs... but, as you will see, I needed all three sets.

First, I had to ball up all the yarn. There were misadventures (and a couple of hideous tangles) before I learned to estimate "about half" and cut the yarn and wind a new tiny ball. (The yarn is doubled for this pattern, and it gives it *just* the right look.)

Now, on to the Why. The "why" of needing three sets is because I have a combination of "selective forgetfulness" and "cleaning frenzy" as disads (and along with "nearsightedness" and "bad knees", this is enough to get me some pretty cool superpowers). By Monday afternoon, I'd run completely out of un-patterend hat to knit, so I had to find the pattern.

But I didn't.

I kept knitting and knitting. As a result, I managed to start the green/Earth hat (cast on, k1p1 rib, knit 9 rows, change colors, knit 9 rows), since having done it once, I knew that much of the pattern. Since I had yarn for two other hats, started the blue/Water one. By the time I was up to the point I'd gotten on the green hat, I still hadn't found/printed the pattern, so I started the orange/Fire one. (Note: every time I work on the real Jayne Hat, I sneeze. The colorway of the orange is "Pollen", and I swear, they must've used some to get that rich, incredibly authentic color - or I'm so allergic that even touching something CALLED "Pollen" is enough to set me off. I shudder to contemplate "Horsie Kisses" yarn; may it never come to be.)

Tuesday, I finally remembered to get the pattern again, so was able to keep going on the Jayne hat, and then the green hat, except I messed up somewhere and had to frog everything past the 9th-second-green row and re-knit it. So, Wednesday morning, here we are:


Three hats, fifteen needles... what could possibly go wrong?
Wednesday night, I had the hat part of the Jayne and green hats, finished the blue hat, and blocked 'em all.



Blocking Three-for-All!
I want the hat part to look pretty good, but the earflaps must remain goofy, thus they will remain unblocked. Thursday morning, they were Much Much drier than they had been, but needed to stay at their drying stations (aka the paper towel racks that are scattered around the house):

green/Earth Hat

blue/Water Hat

Jayne Hat
(Even though it's the Fire Hat, it's THE Jayne Hat.)
Couldn't work on them on Thusday during the day. I was just hoping they'd be dry enough to knit ear-flaps for Thursday night, but no. Couldn't work on them today either - they're still not dry, but they're closer. I figure the fun knitting during CBS Sunday Morning will be all about the ear flaps!