It's beginning to look a lot like...

                                                              ....an elephant.

Now for the blocking and the sewing and the stuffing, and then Eddie will be done.

Eddie the Elephant

I started knitting a stuffed elephant for my daughter.  Here is most of the body done.

(Despite repeated attempts to get a picture of Lucy in her hat, she will not keep the thing on her head.  Hat fail.  Also, after discovering an error in the knitting pattern, I think, for the size I was knitting, and not knowing how to fix said error, I ripped out the sweater I had started and moved on to other things.)

Necessity, and all that jazz

In the wake of our recent nor'easter, complete with five inches of short-lived snow, I realized Lucy doesn't have a hat she will willingly wear.  Most of them cover her eyes, which anyone would find annoying.  So I rummaged through my yarn and found a couple balls of lovely, soft, non-scratchy wool/bamboo blend in a blue-violet shade that fortuitously happens to match her winter coat.  The hat is half-done, but since the light is so poor now there are no photos to show yet.  But , on the positive side of things, this seems to have broken my knitters' block and I'm currently full of ideas.  Yahoo!

Uninspired

I have nothing new to show, even though my daughter is napping for three hours every day, giving me plenty of time to knit (or do other things...), and it's not for lack of trying - I've looked through books, looked through my yarn, started a swatch only to determine that my gauge is off, but I'm not concerned enough even to continue.  I've cut out magazine photos for inspiration, but don't have the funds to buy some luscious alpaca yarn for a slouchy fisherman's sweater like the one I saw in the Peru Collection (besides, it's not washable and I have a smeary, cuddly baby, etc).  Ho hum.  Right now I'm intrigued by the idea of making a teddy bear for my daughter, since she loves pointing out teddy bears in books, but the rows and rows of boring stockinette stitch may drive me away from pursuing that project.  So I've caught up on some reading, instead.  The end.

In the green

After finishing the pumpkin hat, I put it on and took it for a trial run.  Part-way through walking around, fingers firmly held by toddling baby, the hat fell down over my eyes.  Stopped, pushed it back, and the same thing happened again.  So I've decided to give it to a friend who can wear it without 1) looking pumpkin-esque and 2) forehead slope issues.

That aside, I loved the pattern, so I hunted for some slightly finer-gauged yarn.  Enter Rowan Felted Tweed in dark green.

It is knitting up beautifully.  I really like how the pattern stitches appear.  Most importantly, it fits my head without being either too snug or falling off.  I really must thank the ladies of Wild and Wooly in Lexington for their expertise.  This hat is turning out perfectly.

Finished hat

I've been calling this my pumpkin hat.  It is the exact shade of the pumpkin I bought at the store and is slouchy, so it has a certain...roundness.  My husband thinks it looks nice, but to me it seems as though I have a pumpkin head and might also have dreadlocks hidden under the slouchiness.  Either that or I'm wearing an orange old-fashioned chef's hat.  I loved the color until I put it on yesterday night.  Sigh.  But at least it's warm and comfortable.  Who knows, I may grow to love it again.

I also finished with mere feet left.  Yesterday I frantically noticed my yardage shrinking, but I was nowhere close to finished.  The pattern called for two skeins of yarn, but each recommended skein had 144 yards and my skeins only had 109, which left me 80 yards short of the pattern recommendation.  After a morning spent in dismay, calling yarn shop after yarn shop and not finding any more of the yarn, I figured out if I backtracked and started decreasing every row a little earlier, it would be ok, and it was.  My heart is still pounding from those last few rounds.  Knitting is so exciting.  (Sly grin.)

This is right before finishing.  Relief!

And here's what's left, including yarn from the cast-on and finishing bits.  

Hat in progress

It got cool here, and I lost my hat.  Fortunately, I can knit another one!  So I started the Flemish Block Hat from Wearwithall, a lovely collection of patterns by the owners (I think) of The Yarnery, up in Minnesota.  I'm using Classic Elite Inca Alpaca in a nice rusty shade of orange.  (Think autumn maple leaves.)  This should keep my head toasty during afternoons at the playground with my little girl.