Like a Bad Penny?

This seems to be the blog post of poor picture-taking. Just like a bad penny, my sub-standard self sometimes shows up to the shoot. The photographic-genius in me knows intuitively that good pictures are all about the lighting and inspiration for the shot. . .the rest of me knows that the sun is coming up later and later, and going down earlier and earlier. The timing of taking pictures does not always coincide with lovely light streaming in the windows, and with all the cloudy-rainy we have been experiencing lately, it's even worse. That explains this photo of my lovely DIL, Wifey-Poo:I mean, you have seen other photos of her, and you know that she is a lovely young lady. Even in the bad lighting here, she is lovely in her new hat. Please forgive me, DIL!. . .and I hope that the rest of you will please excuse my bad picture. (What was I thinking standing her in front of a bright window? I was thinking that I had better take the picture before I forgot!) So, there it is, another bulky hat, and I think there will be another pattern, but not this week.

This week, I am desperately knitting to finish a sweater that I want to wear soon, because it keeps getting colder and colder outside! On Sunday, I finished the fronts, and stitched up the shoulders and side seams, so sleeves are all I have left!You can see from the pictures (even though I used a flash that washed things out, and I am really bad at the cell-phone self-portraits that are so popular in social media) that this one is going to be a good fit, and I am pretty excited about that, especially since I didn't swatch! We talked about swatching at knit-night last week, and there are definitely two camps in the land of swatching. . .I do not generally swatch, but I don't hold it against anyone who does. After all, swatchers stitch more sweaters that actually fit, in general. . .and if I were teaching Peanut to knit, I would suggest swatching sweaters (do as I say, not as I do?).

Hats, on the other hand, may not require a swatch. Knit from the bottom up, the hats I knit usually fit the heads they are intended for, but I have had a few mishaps here and there (I actually cast on my first bulky hat 5 times to get the right circumference, and even then I didn't include gauge in the pattern at all. Swatching might have saved some time there, but I'm pretty stubborn.) On these hats, no swatch:These are hats for Sweetie and/or Snake. Sweetie has started wearing the gray one (Yay!, but no picture proof), and I don't know if he will really be interested in the tan one, but I know that Snake likes the hat I made him in 2009. . .perhaps it's time for him to have another? But I honestly don't know where I will find the time to knit more hats for the boys. The shop is taking off, and there's a lot of buzz over there these days! Wait, there IS a lot of buzzing. . .what could that be?!?Ohhhhh! It's the bees! I have been working on a custom order for a beekeeper who knits (a knitter who keeps bees?), and she requested bees and hives, but not the fat, yellow bumbles. . .please could she have bees that look more like honey bees, with a longer body, and more subdued colors? Apparently my answer was yes, because there are bees all over my house now (luckily, these are sting-free, polymer clay bees), waiting to be crafted into counters and markers! I had a lot of fun making these, and I think I will have a few extra to put into the shop - Yay!

As usual, my Pretty Knitty Life has been full of Love and Laughter in this season. I look forward to our visits each week, and and I hope that you are looking for (and finding) joy in each day.

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!