Friends and Loss

I've been thinking a lot lately about friends and support.  Good friends get you through hard times, make good times that much better, and are the best part of life.

I learned today that a friend and neighbor passed away on Saturday night.  I was so glad to have found a friend in my building. We were the only young fun people in what feels like a sea of crazy sometimes.  It's a consolation to know she's beyond hurting.  Sadly, her pain has been shifted onto those who love her.  I wish she could have known how much she'd be missed.  And how angry I would be at hearing the neighbors gossip.

A Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day started off with the installation of a dead bolt on my front door.  I feel much more secure now.  Plus it will be much harder to lock myself out! lol

Last night I went out with a friend and we had a great time.  We sat at the bar, chatted, talked to people, made fun of a weird guy.  She's a lot of fun to hang out with.  I'm so grateful for all my good friends!  My pain level has been higher the last week and it was really good to get out and have fun.

♥ ♥ I hope you all are well loved by friends and family, every day ♥ ♥

I'm Famous(ish)

Guess whose hat was featured on the Knitty blog?  Yep, mine!  Very exciting news in Summerland.

I got all amped up to sew yesterday, just in time to have a full day of appointments and errands.  Today is free and maybe I can finish fitting the jumper muslin and do a few small projects.  There's even sun shining through the window--I think it's a sign :)

My Yarn Harlot Moment

The Yarn Harlot, aka Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, is a humorous knitting author/blogger.  In (at least) one of her books she writes about the urge to inspect stranger's knits in public.  I laughed when reading but foolishly thought my knit stalking was safely confined to Knit Night.

Yesterday I was riding the bus and noticed a man wearing a lovely hat.  It was obviously hand knit--the yarn, the fit, the decreases at the top.  It may well have been homespun, too.  I almost got up, sat down next to him, and said "I like your hat."  Which, ideally, would lead him to tell me the story of said hat.  I was also grieving for my lost hat so it was quite emotional in my adorable little head ;)

Luckily for him, he exited the bus just as my urge to accost him was becoming overwhelming.  It was a beautiful hat, though.  He wasn't bad looking either, hee hee.

Good News, Bad News

I got a message today and Knitty want to use a photo of my Escargot hat on their blog.  Yay!  They really liked the color combo and texture :)  I started looking around for it, thinking some better photos would be great.  But (here's the bad news) I can't find it!  I thought I was a grown up and was over randomly losing things.  Appears not.

The not-so-terrible news, however, is that I had lots of yarn leftover that I was turning into a matching scarf.  Now I guess I'll rip out the scarf and make another hat.  At least I took good notes.  *sigh*

A Hat

Knitty, an online knitting magazine, published a cute hat pattern Escargot.  I had some yarn set aside and needed a warmer hat so off I went…

The yarn is a purply-grey boucle, very soft.  Paired with black mohair for contrast I think the end result is pretty good.  I changed the hat a little, by using a long tail cast on and knitting an extra WS row.  This makes the bottom edge 1/3 wider and less prone to rolling.  It also made the flower disproportionately black, so I tacked under much of the black edging before sewing down the flower bit.

The flower is still a bit larger than I'd envisioned, but overall I'm happy with the final result.  It matches my new mittens and keeps my head warm :)

Someday I'll have a willing photographer...