It’s a nice little gift to give oneself the experience of knitting up a quick little project that you’ve had your eye on for almost a decade. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed knitting this up, and I wish I’d made it sooner.
Details:
Pattern: Baa-ble Hat, by Donna Smith (Ravelry link)
Modifications: None, except that it doesn’t have a pom pom on it…yet? I tried my hand at pom pom-making and it did not go well. I might give it another go, but I may not. Time will tell.
Being a mother of many non-driving teenagers who are involved in many activities, lessons, and events, I have a lot of downtime where I am sittting in my van for 30-60 minutes at a time, multiple times throughout the day/week. I use to knit a lot during that time, but over the past few years I’ve been doing a lot more English paper piecing instead. However, I still love knitting and find myself mourning the lack of it in my life. Unfortunately, I generally realize I mourn it right around when the weather starts to warm up, and I don’t like to mix summer weather with wool, so my knitting productivity continued to languish.
The big change for this year was that I have adapted a different task-minding system that allows me to reliably jot down any thoughts I’d like to remind myself of in the future AND have those thoughts pop up in a way that I actually read them and can then implement them at the correct time during the year. I could not have survived grad school without it, and it also transfers to regular everyday life and crafting quite nicely. Case in point: At some point I thought to jot down the idea of using my EPP time for knitting time during the winter. And the reminder popped up to remind me around Christmas. So, now we’re knitting. Thank you, Past Cara.
I still just think it’s amazing that you can take string, wrap it around sticks just so, and then you get knitted fabric. It’s extra amazing that it’s portable and can fill the empty moments of one’s day and eventually reward you with an actual thing that you can then put to use for years. Phone scrolling, or a cute hat? I pick the latter.
A nice bonus when you’re the type of person to engage in portable crafting, is that you end up with memories attached to whatever it was you were working on. This particular hat boasts memories of Renaissance’s final go at the regional solo competition, where I worked on the ribbing for most of the day in a high school cafeteria as we awaited her and her friends’ next performances in front of the judges, waited impatiently for our Door Dash driver to deliver our pizzas, and Rachel began her own EPP project with my EPP kit when I got it out of the van to help her fill the hours. I am so thankful that our kids are involved with the music programs at their schools, and I’m also thankful for the awesome group of people that make up the music programs—the students themselves, their parents, the directors, and a school district that places high importance on musical education. I love our musical flock.
This project has been in the van and I’ve worked on it during the kids’ music lessons through January and February this year—music lessons that have us strategizing what and how Renaissance will audition for her college auditions in the coming weeks. I’ve mulled over the conversations we’ve been having before I parked—topics such as college choices, life skills, and reminiscing over the kids’ childhoods. My little flock is growing up so quickly and setting their sights on further pastures.I’ve literally knit sheep designs into this project as I contemplated what all these things mean for my flock in the next few months. How this hobby began with knitting baby hats for them, cute sweaters when they were preschoolers, shawls in elementary school, fingerless mittens in middle school…a few hats in high school, but they’ve lost a lot of interest in knitted things from Mom in the last couple of years. So imagine my surprise when, upon completion, I wet blocked this hat over a mixing bowl set atop a stool in front of the fan we have set up to circulate air through the kitchen…and every one of them squealed “Sheep!” when they saw it and most of them peeled it off of the mixing bowl and tried it on. And then declared themselves each the owner of the hat. It reminded me of the days when they were little, clamoring to try out any new thing I’d made. Some things have remained the same in the flock.
No idea who this hat will actually end up belonging to, but it’s already much-loved, and it was a joy to make.
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Happy Monday/Tuesday, friend! I had planned to post this yesterday, but my Monday turned into a very long day with no time for blogging, so a Tuesday post it is!
What are your plans for this week? How are you faring with the weather and the season? I’m seeing a lot of evidence of the February blahs all around me here, so I hope you’re doing what you need to do in order to feel as well as you can during this time of year.
We were blessed with an unusual bout of mild weather last week and I made a point of going out into my garden and getting some sunshine. I didn’t accomplish much out there; I mostly just looked at what sort of work was in store for me in a few weeks, but it felt good to connect with that space and allow myself to do some dreaming about what spring and summer holds in store. The rhubarb is starting to grow, and I was excited to create my first recurring garden reminder of 2024 to check the garden for some homegrown produce in the weeks ahead. I normally just make rhubarb crisp—do you have any great ideas or recipes for rhubarb? This plant is prolific and I do not use as much of it as I could, which I’d like to improve upon this year.
We celebrated Emily’s 20th birthday over the weekend with too much food and, at her request, a big bunch of Dungeons & Dragons, so I didn’t make much progress on crafty things, which is totally fine: People are what matter more! She created a quick-play campaign based on Greek mythology, and it was the first time I’d play the game since I was in elementary school, so I was agonizingly slow at understanding what was going on, but we were having a grand ol’ time by the finish. My character is Penelope O’Paca, a Tyrian purple llama centaur cleric who is a member of the weaving guild. I had a blast healing everyone, using my downtime to collect plants for dyes, and weaving magical garments for my party of warriors.
The Baa-ble Hat is coming along quickly. It’s become my watching-TV knit, and it’s February, so there’s many moments to work on it, even with the unexpected milder weather. I’ve mostly just been making socks in recent years, so it’s nice to zip ahead with such a small project.
I’m a little leery about whether or not it’s going to actually fit me, because 1) The circumference of my head is 2 inches larger than the average 21 inches that most adult hat patterns strive to fit, and 2) It’s stranded color work, which, even though it’s my favorite thing to knit, is usually less stretchy because of the carried strands. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever made myself a stranded colorwork hat that ever fit. I’m trying to keep the floats loose, but…you know, it usually isn’t enough. This is such an easy knit, however, that I would be willing to re-knit it on bigger needles if it doesn’t turn out the size I need it to be.
I’m not sure if I love how the white and blue yarn are creating a wispy cloud effect, or if I don’t like the lack of contrast between the sky and the clouds.
Looking at the week ahead, I’m hoping to:
Finish the Baa-ble Hat
Start or pick up another knitting project for on-the-go crafting—there’s a lot of dental check-ups this week, which means a lot of sitting around in waiting rooms. Knit Picks has a sale on their Swish yarn this month over at crochet.com, so I’m thinking about starting a project with that yarn because it’s machine washable and easy to care for.
Make a dent in the quilting of the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt, and maybe even finish the quilting—I think I only have the borders left to do, which is quite possibly my least favorite part of quilting a quilt, and I’m really stuck as to what I should quilt in the borders.
Put some time in on the Chatsworth Block of the Month. The fabric is almost prepped, so it should be easy to pick up and start.
Start prepping fabric for Nathaniel’s birthday quilt.
There’s so much more I’d like to be able to say I’m going to do, but that list alone feels like too much, so I’ll stop there.
I hope you’re able to find time this week to pursue some creativity and restore your spirits! We’re beyond the halfway point between the darkest day of the year and the Spring Equinox (when the days become longer than the nights), so we’re almost back into Sunshine Time. You can do it! February isn’t forever!
As of January 2024, posts may contain affiliate links. When you purchase something from a link in my post, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend materials and tools that I have personally vetted.
It is mind boggling to me that I managed to abstain from most creative endeavors for eighteen months! Of course, one way that I dealt with the inevitable withdrawal pangs was to promise myself that I’d be allowed to work on crafty things to my heart’s content once I was done with school, which has resulted in a HUGE “Want to Make” list. Unfortunately, now that we’re to the point of being able to grapple with all the beautiful projects I earmarked, I’m overwhelmed by all of my choices! What a fantastic problem to have! Hee hee. I work through decisions better with writing and visuals, so here’s what’s on my mind:
Quilts:
Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: (ASAP) I am finally quilting this! It’s horrible quilting because 1) I’m very out of practice, and 2) I wasn’t that great a quilter to begin with, but it’s in-progress! I’ve realized that the quilting step is the huge bottleneck for my quilts; there was a time when I could just send them out to a long-arm quilter and wash my hands of the task, but prices and shipping have gotten so expensive in recent years that I can’t justify the cost anymore. I invested in another sewing machine with a much larger throat space so I can quilt my own quilts, but they’re definitely not as pretty as the long-arm pantos that I love. Sigh. Done is better than perfect here. And hey, maybe I’ll actually develop my quilting skills to a level that pleases me. The Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt will not reflect that sort of level, but I’m telling myself it’s ok because it’s a scrap quilt that will get the snot kicked out of it anyway, so wonky quilting won’t be a tragedy.
Far Far Away Quilt: (ASAP) I started this one back in 2022 and even worked on it a little during a school break. It’s sewn into its rows and is awaiting the rest of the top assembly, which will then require me to pull out all the foundation papers, which is causing me some task paralysis because papers removal just plain isn’t fun! But, oh…it’s a pretty quilt! Cara! Just slog through the unpleasant part and get this finished so you can have this awesome quilt! Geez!
Chatsworth Block of the Month: (January-December) This is a sew along hosted by Fat Quarter Shop this year and I really want to participate because I’ve been collecting some fabrics for a couple of years now that will work really, really well for it! The first installment of blocks were due by the end of last month, but I haven’t started yet.
Piece & Quilt Sampler Sew Along: (March 2024-February 2025) Another sew along with the Fat Quarter Shop. I bought the pattern book a while back because it looked awesome, and then I saw there was a sew along this year and I got really excited about it. I’ve even stash-dived and decided on some great fabric to use. The question is whether or not I have time for it? You can look at the general info and fabric requirements here if you’re also interested. It’s going to be a pretty quilt!
Birthday quilt for Nathaniel: (April) He at least has his own Christmas quilt, but alas, still no everyday quilt, and he rarely resists the opportunity to bring it up in conversation that I’ve deeply neglected him in failing to provide this necessity of life. He’s given up on the Rocket Age quilt, and has been asking for a pig quilt for a couple of years.
Reading Nook Quilt: (May) For the most part, I avoided even looking at fabric while I was working on my master’s degree; but, during a particularly stressful couple of weeks of student teaching, I indulged in a lot of online window shopping as I grappled with the challenges I was facing. As luck would have it, Ruby Star Society’s “Reading Nook” collection was released that week and I was completely smitten with its adorableness and ordered a fat quarter bundle of it with the promise that I could make myself a reading quilt once student teaching was completed. I’ve mocked up a pattern for it, it’s super simple and satisfying, but I’ve lacked time to start working on it. I’d really like to finish this as a birthday gift to myself this year.
Fig Tree Strawberry Garden Block of the Month: (May 2024-April 2025) Another FQS sew along; I absolutely love it and hope I can make it happen! I’ve placed a reservation order for the book and I’ve definitely got enough stashed Fig Tree fabrics to work with, so it wouldn’t even require purchasing fabrics.
Renaissance Graduation/College Quilt: (June/August) ‘Cuz I gotta. No idea what I’m going to make or what fabric/color palette I’ll use. I figure that will get worked out once we get her through the college application/acceptance process.
Penguin Christmas quilt for Renaissance: (November) Because she’s a senior in high school this year and she still doesn’t have her own Christmas quilt! She’s been making do with the Hipster Christmas Tree quilt, but I’d really like to get her very own, made-specifically-for-her quilt done before Thanksgiving this year. I have no idea where she’s heading after high school; she’s vacillating between studying music out of state or staying close to home and earning a technical certificate in pastry arts, so the quilt could be a “welcome home for the holidays” thing or it might not be. It is nerve-wracking to watch your barely-adult children make these huge decisions.
Gingerbread Christmas quilt for Rachel: (November) Rachel also doesn’t have her very own made-for-her Christmas quilt. She’s been making do with the Double-Nine Patch quilt I made for Fat Quarter Shop back in 2018, but has been wishing and wishing for a gingerbread quilt for years and years. Due in large part to the euphoria of having submitted my last ever final paper right before Black Friday, I bought an embarrassing amount of fabric at various quilt shops’ Black Friday sales, and the majority of it was various precuts and yardages of the Holiday Cheer collection by My Mind’s Eye, solely for the purpose of finally sewing up a “just for Rachel” Christmas quilt.
English Paper Piecing quilts: I have four in-progress and it would be nice to finish up some of them. There’s the Star Spangled Diamonds quilt from forever ago that needs borders, the Smitten quilt that needs a few more filler pieces to assemble the top, a Christmas-themed jewel quilt I started this last Christmas because I wanted a Christmas project to work on in the car, and the Roses Hexagon quilt that I’ve slowly been working on for years whenever I need a break from current projects.
Knitting:
I don’t think I have any definitive knitting projects in mind, which makes me sad. It’s just not that cold here in Washington, when compared to winter weather in Utah, so the need just isn’t that high anymore. However, I just like the *feel* of knitting needles in my hands, so I’d like to do more knitting…I just don’t know what to work on. I wonder if I equate knitting with babies and children for the most part, and because there’s really no little people in our families anymore, there’s not a lot of pressure to knit right now?
However, I do have a lot of stash. Some things I’m inspired to make when I think about my stash are:
Lace shawls: I have a lot of laceweight yarn in really beautiful colors. Unfortunately, I don’t really lead a life that uses lace shawls, so creating them to then just let them sit is silly. I could try to become a shawl-wearing person, though…or just enjoy the creative process and not worry so much about the end product.
Socks: I also have a lot of fingering-weight yarn that would make good socks. I think I just need to grant myself permission in this vein. Socks are awesome mindless knitting that are oh-so-portable. I should pause my EPP in the car and concentrate on knitting instead until the weather warms up.
School mascot hat/beret: I was exploring yarn shops in the area and bought some yarn in my kids’ high school colors because I had a vision of a cool beret knit in fair isle technique of the school mascot. Should probably move along on this idea.
Brooklyn Tweed Shelter project: I’ve been collecting random colorways for years, and decided, on a whim, to cast on a Baa-ble Hat last week. I’m enjoying knitting it up!
Clothing
I have so much apparel fabric and I literally have no plans to use any of it. It’d be nice to get back into clothing sewing, but my focus may just be on quilts this year. I don’t know even know where I’d start with clothes. There is a lovely feeling of satisfaction when you sew your own clothes, though…I miss it.
Embroidery
Weird things happen when you put things on your Amazon wish list—sometimes your husband will actually buy you the things! Michael generously gifted me an embroidery machine for this Christmas, and it’s on my radar to learn how to use the thing…at some point. I didn’t think I’d ever receive it as a gift, so I have no plans in effect. I put it on my wishlist while I was really leaning into tablescaping for the holidays and I think I’d enjoy creating specially embroidered table linens. And monogrammed bridal handkerchiefs. And I’ve always wanted embroidered pillowcases with matching embroidered flat sheets, and, and, and…hee hee hee. It might take A WHILE to circle around to this, though; I really do have a lot of quilty plans to plough through first!
So that’s what I’ve got on my mind for 2024. I guess I should print out this list and hang it up somewhere to remind me that I’ve got some serious sewing to get to this year! I really got out of the habit of daily creativity during grad school, but I missed it dearly and am going to make an earnest effort to reintegrate creativity back into my daily life. Wish me luck! And I wish YOU luck with your project goals for 2024!
That Crafty Cara 