Sometime in November, the boys asked me for some knitting. At the time, I kind of waved my hand grumpily at them while hunched over a Christmas project from the list that never seemed to get any shorter, sweating, and muttered "grrr . . . after Christmas . . ." Well. Whatever impression that leaves of my parenting skills, I have begun the requested knitting, namely flame hats, flame mittens, flame sweaters, and maybe flame slippers. They basically want to look like I set them on fire. So, okay. What I have to go on is the Jesse's Flames sweater from the Stitch n Bitch Nation book. This is a pattern for a men's sweater with flames on the sleeves. I used the flames chart for the basic idea of how a flame should look, then elaborated a little and voila! The flame hat is born. Here is Little Brother's:
He seems to like it. I knit it out of the same Paton's merino I used for J's mittens, on size 7 straight needles. I think I will make Big Brother's on circulars, and also a little smaller. I aim to get it done before the end of the week, both because it's really not fair that Little Brother has a new hat and Big Brother does not, but because the new job starts Tuesday (gulp). I will post the pattern for the hat after I make the second one and if I can figure out how to get the chart up.
In other knitting-related news, my stash has undergone a sudden bit of expansion. No, I didn't go wacky with the credit card at the new (to me) yarn store I found last weekend. My father-in-law's neighbor is moving out of her house and doesn't want to bring this yarn with her. So here is the new stash, such as it is:
Yeah, this is some old yarn. Lots of acrylic. Lots of stuff that says it's wool but somehow still feels like acrylic. All of it smells pretty musty. I did get a kick out of that vintage pattern book, though. Anyway, I'm not really sure what to do with it all. I mean, it was very nice of her to give it to me, especially since I don't know her all that well. Any suggestions?
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