Isn't this a great button and button band?

I made Ysolda’s Verity in Paton’s Classic Merino Wool.  My friend Amy K. “stole” it before I could get a better picture because I didn’t want to take the classic “mirror picture” and didn’t have any way to model it’s goodness.

Now I’m going to have to knit another for myself.  This time, though, I have a plan to prevent future “theft before picture” fiascos.  I call her Vera.

Pattern: Slip on Down by Anne Campbell (free)
Yarn: Top -  Brown Sheep Prairie Silks (discontinued) in Krona Coffee held with three strands of Crystal Palace Yarns Kid Merino in Espresso
Brim - Patons Classic Wool Merino in natural held doubled.

Needles: Top - US 11 / 8.0 mm
Brim - US 10½ / 6.5 mm

Modifications: Ran out of yarn before it was long enough, so I added a contrasting fold up brim in k3 p1 ribbing.

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So I finished the leaf green sonnet, but after I finished sewing it together it was too stretchy and the shoulders wanted to fall off my shoulders. It’s so stretchy I’d recommend making it with negative ease to compensate along with making the neck opening narrower for a better fit through the shoulders.

Since I didn’t care to frog the whole damned sweater, I decided to try felting it to see if I could get a better fit. It turned out wonderfully. I just wish I’d taken a before picture to show how stretchy it was before I felted it.

To felt it, I just hand washed it in really hot water and then pressed out as much as possible. Then I threw it in the dryer on low heat with a bunch of dry towels for 20 minutes. It worked perfectly to felt it up and didn’t remove much of the texture from the seed and box stitches. If anything, it actually accentuated the differences in texture and made it seem much more like a light boiled wool jacket. It’s really cute on, but unfortunately, my roommate wasn’t here, so I had to get a photo of Baked Potato Betty modeling it for me.

Baked Potato Betty makes an excellent model but sadly, like Marie Antoinette, she has no head.

HR got a new ski coat, so I’ve been working on a hat to go with it to give to her for Christmas. I’ve been using the Swell pattern from Knitty.com.

This is HR’s ski coat, and the inspiration piece for the colors. I chose softer versions of all three colors. My “white” is Knit Picks Bare Superwash Merino Worsted. The grey is plain old Classic Merino Worsted in Dark Gray Mix. I had the yellow custom dyed by Epicurus at the Lazy Perry Ranch who has some beautiful hand dyed colorways and does custom dyeing on request.

I had a small gauge problem with the first attempt at the hat. The red hat is one of the hats HR wears with her black jacket. HR will be giving the infant sized version of her hat to her youngest niece who is 7 months old.

So I’ve learned from my problems, cast on and started again. This time the hat is working out to the correct size. Yay!

I’m cruising right along on my Sonnet and thought I should snap a few pictures before it’s all done. If I keep progressing at this pace, I should be done by the end of the week, maybe even before the end of the month. We’ll see if I hit that goal.

I just started the left armhole.

It took a little doing to get a color accurate shot. The silly thing keeps showing up “Kirk Gold” in my photos. I half wonder if I shouldn’t use this yarn to make the Star Trek Sweater and make it like Kirk’s green surplice uniform top similar to the one in this fan recreation and this famous shot from the Season 2 episode The Trouble with Tribbles. The geek factor for doing that is pretty damn high, I admit, but as long as it’s not a complete recreation and just an “inspired by,” I think I should be cut some slack for wearing it in public if I do that.

I love the texture on this top. It’s an easy, fun, knit. I’m sure I’ll have to make another variation on it at some point in the future.