A love/hate relationship. Aren't they all?

A hat! A hat for me! I don't know if this happens to other knitters (I'm sure it does), but I really hate anything I make for myself to wear. There's always something wrong with it, or I didn't really put that much effort into it, something. But I can't stop knitting, and my family gets tired of knitted objects after a while...thus I've been knitting for myself. So this hat is no different...although the overall result is positive, I have a few complaints.

For this hat, I used Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora Pure...it's 100% angora and the colors were fabulous. I was drawn to this instantly because it's such an unusual blue-grey. I didn't originally have a plan for the yarn, so I improvised a hat with a few simple lace panels evenly spaced throughout. For the lace, I just used a staggered yarnover pattern- it doesn't really show up well in the photo, sadly. Because angora is so warm, I knit this hat relatively loosely. I discovered that it was a very good thing that I did, though- this yarn is super fragile and breaks if you even look at it the wrong way. I'm sure my abusive treatment (ex: travel habits with my knitting, getting stuck in zippers, etc...further examples of how I treat knitting for myself vs. for others) didn't help, either, but when I was finished I had to weave in about 6 ends for one skein of yarn. Finishing the top was the trickiest because you can't pull on the yarn at all...so here's to hoping my minimal weaving stays put. I'm counting on the self-felting tendencies of the yarn to help me out here.

Still, I love the hat and wear it all the time. It's a nice change for me to like something I've made...and better yet, to wear it!

Kniterary Club met this morning at Espresso Royale! Caffeine + knitting + good friends = a great Sunday morning. Time to get to work, though: I have some serious work to do playing the oboe so the afternoon will be spent practicing and making reeds. Sigh.

Idle curiousity: is there an Ann Arbor Knitter's Guild? Mental note: look into it and join.