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Sheesh, I'm really slacking here. In the blogging, anyway, if not the knitting.

We just got back from a long weekend of skiing at Mammoth Mountain up north of here, and since none of the Christmas of hats were for any of us, I made a couple.

The first one's for me. I've wanted to knit the Koolhaas hat since I first saw it on brooklyntweed's blog, and it was the reason I went out and bought the IK Holiday '07 magazine. I didn't know what yarn I wanted to use for it, though. I was rummaging around the stash a couple of weeks ago and found the leftovers from my MIL's felted slippers, a whole ball plus a partial. I happened to have my ski jacket out as well, and lo and behold, they matched! So my Koolhaas was born.

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It's surprisingly hard to get a photo of the top or back of your own head, even with the timer...

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Pattern: Koolhaas, by Jared Flood, from Interweave Knits Holiday 2007 issue
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, in Mulled Wine
Needles: US6/4mm for the ribbing, US7/4.5mm for the rest. I could or perhaps should have gone down another size (this was already one down from the pattern).
Dates: Feb. 16-18, 2008
Notes: I really like this hat a lot. I love the lines of it, and, along with everyone else, the way the decreases follow the pattern as they spiral up to the top. I wore it the whole weekend. I did find that by the end of the weekend it was pretty stretched out, but still stayed on my head. I've washed it, and if it's still stretched out I may toss it for a very quick whizz in the dryer to see if I can shrink it back up again. All in all, very happy with it!

Next, I have another FO to blame on Ravelry. There's a thread on the boards there asking what your favorite "obscure" pattern is. Defined as having around 20 or less projects listed in Ravelry. (Note: This thread is guaranteed to triple your queue. Enter at your own risk!) Someone there posted a link to a pattern for an R2D2 beanie, and C happened to be standing by my computer when I brought it up. Of course, he asked for one immediately. Loving the hat myself, I complied, of course:

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Isn't it great!?! I love it. He got a lot of compliments wearing it around town. Here's the back:

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Pattern: R2D2 Beanie, by Carissa Browning
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in Grey Heather and odds and ends of black and red, and Red Heart Super Saver in Royal Blue.
Needles: US6/4mm
Dates: Feb. 21-22, 2008
Notes: I did the bottom blue stripe stranded, as I had to get this done quickly and all of that grey duplicate stitch would have taken me way longer. Because of this I changed the chart slightly in the large square area. I made a shorter camera/eye (3 rows) on the front. I also added the red “eye” light that wasn’t on the chart.

The final hat is a quick one that I made for my niece. She needs to have medication put on her head that makes her hair look greasy, so she wears a lot of hats. This is one of the few patterns I saved out of last year's SnB calendar, and it was really quick. Again with the self-photography:

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The crown decreases were different from my normal spiral:

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Pattern: Boarder's Beanie, by Lauren Sanchez, from the Stitch'n'Bitch Calendar 2007; size small (88 sts)
Yarn: Bernat Softee Chunky, in Carnival
Needles: US5/3.75mm
Gauge: 5 st/in
Dates: Mar. 3-6 2008
Notes: I don't think I changed anything on this one, except use smaller needles to make it fit an almost 7-year-old. I think she'll love the colors!

Finally, some socks. These were my Ravelry Sockdown socks for January, in which we were to knit a sock by Cookie A, or one with intarsia. I went with Cookie A. I've had the BFF socks printed out since not too long after I got back into knitting again, so I was glad to have an excuse to get them on the needles. This was my first time knitting with Dream in Color Smooshy, and it really is smooshy! I liked it a lot. It's a bit thicker than many sock yarns, and is soft. Lasted forever, too! It comes in 113g (4oz) skeins, and even though these were for women's size 10 feet, I only used 80g. I bought this pink, and also some black. I'm not much of a pink person (although I loved this yarn), so these socks have gone to a friend.

The color isn't quite right, I took these pictures at the pool at sunset. It's not too far off, though. The pink is a nice bubble-gummy pink with purple flecks throughout.

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Cabled socks take me so much longer than most any other patterning, but I do really like cables a lot. Here's a closeup:

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Pattern: BFF Socks, by Cookie A
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy, in Cool Fire
Needles: US1/2.25mm
Gauge: 8 st/in
Dates: Jan. 8 - Feb. 25, 2008

Whew, sorry for the recent post-and-go behavior.

Oh, and don't forget to change your clocks on Saturday!