2 weeks, 2 head coverings

Even though it's been Christmas and a trip to San Francisco, I managed to get 2 super cool hats done over the last 2 weeks. Fun!

Little Blue Riding Hood! A great hood with a cabled band.

The same pattern I used for my friend's purple hat and the Ultralingua penguin hat, a really soft grey 6-cable hat with ear flaps and pom-pom.

So glad I have found ways to make winter fun and stylish :)

Cowl

I wanted to tackle Moebius knitting (a circular scarf with a half twist), but didn't have a circular needle long enough to put in the twist. Instead, I just knit a scarf in the round. It works as a hood and a thick scarf. Great for cold days!

Ultralingua Penguin

At my company, we make dictionaries and phrasebooks, but have recently been moving into the field of word games. One game we're working on involves penguins. We've since adopted the penguin as an office mascot, so when we planned a White Elephant gift exchange, I knew the perfect thing to knit. It didn't turn out as great as my last penguin hat, but my coworkers loved it! Here were some comments received when the lucky recipient of the hat sent out a photo to his friends:

-- "Please send my highest praises to Anna!  Her hat is purlicious!  Yarn over the top!  Cast off the hook!"
-- "Hat = better than good.  Try BEST HAT EVER.  Anna is my hero."
-- "I can't believe she knit something big enough to fit your head.  It's lovely."
-- "Oh, fer cyute! You look like you should be playing hockey, eh?"
-- "It's fabulous. Anna is fabulous. I demand that you wear it always. Will she make me a squid hat, I wonder?"

Extra Large Cable

I used my roving yarn and size 35 needles to make a scarf with an extra large cable. I wanted it to be a lot wider, but with only 4 balls of roving, I didn't have enough to make it as cool as these.

A Winter of Knitting

Since my boyfriend works every night until 11 pm, I have a lot of time by myself, so I've been doing tons of knitting lately. Here are some of my recently completed projects.

A scarf made from beautiful orange and gold yarn that was handspun in Nepal by local women.

Finally, one year later, a star hat for my friend in Chile. I started this while in Istanbul, but then became sidetracked by other things.

This hat was a special request- she wants a bird sewn onto the side, but I'm stuck figuring out how to make that look good. So this is the finished version for now.

I'm working on a roving cabled scarf and soon will begin my first Moebius scarf. A busy winter of knitting is ahead!

Crazy About Decoupage!

I recently became obsessed with decoupage. I had done exactly one decoupage project back in 2008- a cardboard money bank covered in Berber pictures for Aissa to save money for a trip back to Algeria, but beyond that, I didn't do much with decoupage, even though I had lots of ideas.

Well, one day at work I became crazy about the idea of starting again. After work I stopped at Utrect, an art store, looking for Mod Podge. They didn't have that, so I got Yes! Paste, a similar kind of glue that the salesman recommended. Aissa has brought home a few cigar boxes from work for me, and I decided that they would be the perfect things to start decorating. I had some MIR travel brochures with tons of pictures of Central Asia, so I cut out the best ones and glued them on. My final goal is to put a handle and a clasp on it to make a purse, but I haven't gotten past the gluing stage (Yes! Paste dries very slowly, so I can only do one top coat every 24 hours). Here are pictures of it so far.

 I then decided to keep going. I inherited an IKEA side table from Aissa's old roommate, and I bought a vintage National Geographic map of Asia a few months ago, and I thought that they belong together. So I started a map table. I still have to do a top coat and I want to cover the insides of the legs with maps, but here is a table that is now a million times cooler than it was this morning before I started.

There seems to be an endless stream of ideas in my head of things I can decoupage - picture frames, necklace pendants, more cigar boxes, dresser drawers, switch plates, lamp shades, wooden bowls... good thing it's winter and I have evenings free to turn all these ideas into reality! Pretty soon my house will completely covered in maps.

Next Project

I'm currently working on some cabled armwarmers, but I've found my next project- a giant scarf! It requires size 50+ needles and roving, which is unspun yarn.

Warm? Yes. Practical? Not really. Awesome? Totally.