Knitty hat

When I read that Dipsy D. was thinking about making the same hat that I made Geoff, I thought that I'd better post the changes that I made.

First, I frogged about a quarter of it and started over when I tried it on Geoff and he said that it was too long. The pattern shows that the brim is rolled and he didn't want to roll it. So I started it again about 2 inches shorter. When it was finished it was quite big and loose, probably because it was meant to have a rolled brim, so I threaded some yarn around the inside of the edge. I tried it on him and pulled the yarn to his desired circumference and then tied it off and wove in the ends.

This is a very thick, warm hat. It's fine for Saskatchewan winters but would probably be too hot for warmer climates. The pattern uses acrylic yarn. My stash yarn was 30% wool and 70% acrylic. It's washable and should breathe a bit better due to the wool content.

another hat

I finished Geoff's hat. It's a Knitty pattern and I used stash yarn. It's a funky pattern but I'm quite glad that it's done. It used double stranded worsted weight yarn and it hurt my hands to knit it for some reason.

I have started the knitting club at school again. I opened it up to grades 3 and 4 and have more kids than I know what to do with! There are so many beginners; luckily some of my knitters from last year can lend a hand to get the others started. I even had a mom and a grandma join us last time so that they could see what I was doing and be able to help their daughter at home. On his first day of knitting one boy commented that the girls seem to be better at it than the boys and then added that it was okay because boys eventually get smarter at things when they are men than women. All knitting needles stopped and there were many pairs of eyes upon him. Lucky for him that the bell rang to end recess just then and everyone had to leave. I don't think that the lad got that what he said was offensive. It makes you wonder what he hears at home. I'll have to take a moment and set him straight when I get a chance.

Here's another kid-bit. One of my colleagues was retiring last June. When she told her students about it one kid asked what retiring meant. Another one said, "Oh I know. It's what you do before you go live in the old folks home."

hand-spun hat finds a home

The hand-spun hat is finished and has found a home with Carmen, my son Geoff's girlfriend. She is happy with it and so am I. It has just the right amount of stretch to be comfy. Now I have been commissioned to knit a hat for Geoff too. I'm thrilled that they want knitted things! I don't think that I would have been excited with hand-knitted clothes at that age but that might just be because they weren't a novelty. My mom did a lot of knitting.

The Stones Concert

My Top Ten Reasons to See the Rolling Stones Concert in Regina this weekend:

10. This is the first time that someone as big as the Stones has brought their show to Regina, which only has a population of about 200,000. Mick Jagger said that Regina rhymes with fun. Those of us that live here don't think too much about our city rhyming with the v-word but to others it's a huge giggle every time.

9. Everybody is going. Two concerts were booked and sold out. There were over 40,000 people at each.

8. Someone else (friends) did all the conniving to get the tickets which were pretty much sold out within minutes of being available.

7. I like the aforementioned friends.

6. My husband wanted to go. He loved the concert.

5. The weather on Friday evening was absolutely beautiful for this time of year and there was a big old full moon hanging in the sky over the stadium.

4. The stage was six stories high and sections of it came apart and moved into the audience. Very cool.

3. Lots of spectacular lights and pyrotechnics.

2. The entertainment value of watching the other people: young, old, and everyone in between.

1. Mick and the boys can still sing and move as well as they did when they were young. Quite incredible! Keith Richards has been ageless for years and will always remind me of pirate Jack Sparrow.


My Top Ten Reasons for Rather Being at Home Than Going to See the Stones Concert:

10. I've never been a serious rock fan. In fact, I think that I was born without the rock concert gene completely.

9. I hate big crowds and it would be hard to find a bigger crowd anywhere. Because Regina has never hosted anything of this magnitude before there were some kinks to work out. One of those kinks was getting into a bottleneck between the security gate and the entrance to the stadium. We were packed solid in a huge crowd for at least twenty minutes with no one moving. I don't know what caused this to happen but it's a good thing nobody had a heart attack or a stroke or they would have died for sure. No emergency assistance could have gotten anywhere near them. I can see how people die in rock concert stampedes and riots in other places. People were getting very impatient and cranky but we're Prairie folks so we put up with it because we're basically nice.

8. That much standing on concrete makes my joints hurt and I'd been dealing with a severe headache all week.

7. I couldn't take my knitting. Okay, I'm just kidding about this one. Security was very tight and I wouldn't have had room to knit anyway because there was hardly enough standing space per ticket, never mind sitting space. Oh, and it was pretty dark except for the light show and pyrotechnics.

6. It was Friday night and I'm always pooped by Friday night.

5. The tickets were very expensive.

4. I'm a prude. Rock concerts are not good places for prudes.

3. Huge lineups for catching the shuttle buses to and from the stadium.

2. Although Regina has a no smoking bylaw no one, including the Stones, paid any attention to it. I hate having to breathe second-hand smoke. And it wasn't just cigarette smoke either, if you get my drift.

1. The group of young people that were sitting next to us. They were probably about 19 - 20 years old. They were drunk (one of them vomited on the people in front of her and was asked to leave by security - her friends were most indignant about it because they said that she had a baby and this was the first time she'd had a chance to have fun since the baby), high (although one young man did offer us a toke politely - he also got very excited when Keith Richards came on stage and told everyone in the stands that Keith was his hero, big surprise), and one of them was very pregnant. I kept visualizing the scene in the future of this young mom meeting with school personnel and saying aloud that she had no idea why her child was experiencing difficulty in school. I have a hard time watching people reproduce and not accepting responsibility for the health of their children. Call me old-fashioned.

What can I say? Things have been busy.

I know it's been a long time between blog posts. There hasn't been a lot to post. Knitting life has been quiet. I seem to be doing a lot of planning and frogging so have been spinning my wheels and not accomplishing much.

I was excited to see the Namaste Everyday Bag come in the mail the other day. It's a beautiful bag - soft, sturdy, and such a pretty color! It is definitely roomy.

I spun enough Romney to start a hat. I was trying for a semi-woolen spin and I think it's a good choice for a hat. There's enough loft for warmth. I like the swirl of colors from Sharon's dying and my plying - sort of a marled effect. I did the hat top down so that I would know how much yarn it's going to need. I may have to spin some more for the brim. I've run out of most of the colors but have quite a bit of the darker blue left which would be just fine for the brim.

I'm enjoying the knitted lace of the Silk Smoke and I really didn't think that I would. It seems to grow so fast! I've asked Sharon to order me some more Sea Silk in the Nova Scotia colorway for a shawl to be made in the future.

Dan and I were in attendance at the Rolling Stones concert last night. More on that to follow.