Welcome to Mountaintop Quilting Studio

This is where you find me exploring a variety of creative adventures mostly about but not limited to quilting. I'm a firm believer that one increases their creativity by being open to and playing with a variety of cretative endeavors ... at least that my excuse for today. Enjoy your sourjourn through my studio playroom. May you find encouragement and inspiration, and on occassion, a little pin-prick that may be thought-provoking or spark your imagination. Thank you for stopping by.

HAT-TITUDE: they say that's what you've got when you're wearing your favorite hat and feelin' kinda sassy!

Just a quick update/progress report on the current knitting project - Eryn's hat ... I'm a little more than halfway finished with the crown section. I need a total of 6" in seed stitch and right now I have a little more than 4" finished. I love the two patterns used in this hat. The cable in the ribbed section was so easy ... just a three stitch cable and no need for a cable needle. And then the seed stitch section ... how after all these years of various knitting projects have I never done this stitch pattern before! The best thing about this stitch is there is that it is kind of like quilting with batiks. You can't possibly get mixed up because there is no right or wrong side. And it is so easy:

• Row 1: K1, P1 all the way around.
• Row 2: Purl in the knit stitches and Knit in the purl stitches. Continue with Row 2 until project is finished.

How could it be any more simple than that?

While she was visiting during the Christmas holidays Eryn picked out this hat pattern from a book I had just purchased called Hattitude by Cathy Carron. The pattern suggests using a Mongolian Cashmere to provide the wonderful drape in the crown, however, that yarn is just a little bit out of our price range. So, I played around with some yarn samples and finally found one that might work ... not quite a beautiful with the drape but the gauge is correct.

The pattern calls for size 2 and size 6 circular needles. As with most projects I start these days I must first search through the remaining unpacked boxes for materials before I can even begin step one. And so the search was on for the knitting needles and all that goes with knitting projects: place markers, crochet hooks, yarn needles ... No luck ... so off to the store I went to start rebuilding the knitting tool box.

As I searched through the knitting notions wall everything was there that was on my list except the size 2 needles. Now what to do ... my only option (we're not blessed with an over-abundance of shopping options here in the Berkshires) was a needle kit that included all needle sizes and 4 sets of cable rounds in various lenths. All I needed to do was screw the needle ends on to each end of the desired cable and start knitting. AND, the best part ... everything is contained in a neat little handy-dandy case. Easy to store in my knitting basket ... harder to loose a whole knitting basket than individual knitting needle pairs. LOL

The only catch ... a pretty exspensive price tage. What to do? What to do? Fortunately, I also had a half-off coupon that should be used on something worth while. And so it was a done deal ... comin' home with me! Oh, I forgot to tell you ... see those little red buttons in the case? Those are used to screw on the ends of the cables when I want to work with straight needles rather than circular needles. I think I made a pretty good purchase that day.

Guess what else ... I found out later when I was telling Eryn about my great shopping bargin ... I gave her all my knitting and crochet supplies when she started knitting a couple of years ago. Good grief, Charlie Brown, no wonder I couldn't find them in the packing boxes!

Wait, if she has all the knitting supplies, why am I knitting the hat for her ... ???

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Comments

• The hat looks great! Keep up the good work. I've been knitting with a program Knit- Along by Skacel and Michele Hunter....it is a mystery project. Mostly socks this month it is fingerless gloves.... Keep warm and toasty. Ann
  by Ann Beeman on 07 February 2011 at 11:31 a.m.
• You're right Ruth ... and lovin' every minute of it! :)
  by Kay on 01 February 2011 at 9:37 p.m.
• Isn't it amazing what we'll do for our children and grandchildren as retirees?
  by Ruth Hofmann on 01 February 2011 at 8:34 p.m.