knittybean: this yarn is magic

What do you do with a bitterly cold, misty/rainy, windy Sunday afternoon? Why, you take a bus that only runs once an hour a few miles to a new yarn shop to buy EVEN MORE yarn! Or at least that's what I did yesterday.

It's been so rainy and cold up here (keep in mind I was raised in Southern California, so after about a week of rain I've reached my wetness threshold) that everyones' been keeping their activities limited in favor of staying warm and dry. Since it looks like the rain isn't going to let up--one girl recently told me we'd get rain at least two times a week until mid April--I decided I had to suck it up and continue to have a life. . . even if it means getting soaked on the way to the yarn shop.

It's a good thing I decided to venture out yesterday, too, because I found the most amazing yarn AND yarn shop! I went to Stash (on Solano Ave in Berkeley) and found the staff to be more than helpful and attentive and the selection of yarns to be great. Plus they've got a nice little area of couches in the back where you can hangout and knit whenever you feel like it. Only bummer about the shop is the knit-together night they have is the same day of the week and time that I have my evening class. Bummer.

I didn't really need anything at the yarn shop, but all the cold weather recently made me realize I've never knit myself a straight-forward warmwarmwarm beanie. Sure, I've made a few cute hats. . . but I'll admit, I didn't have gusty winds and driving rain in mind when I designed them.

I so enjoyed knitting with larger yarn on the Wilderness Beanie that I decided to get some chunky wool yarn for my warm beanie. I ended up with Lorna's Shepherd Bulky, Color 403 "Tuscany". I'm always a little wary of variegated/hand dyed yarns; I really dislike that typical super stripey look you get with them. But this Lorna's didn't stripe at all, it actually created this amazing kind of lightning-bolt color arrangement.

This yarn is something magic, I tell you. It feels so lush to knit with, not to mention the finished hat feels squishy and lush and warm. I couldn't take my eyes off this yarn while knitting it. This hat, a simple 1x1 rib beanie, is by far my favorite hat I've ever made. It is beautiful and fits perfectly. Photos of the hat are above. Please excuse the bags under my eyes and my wan complexion (I came down with the flu last night) and also the awful mirror shot. I need to con Sam into taking finished object photos of me so I don't have to resort to using the bathroom mirror.

And! I had about a third of the ball left over after I made my hat. So I cast on for a hat for my favorite little baby. Hopefully I'll have it done by later this afternoon; the adult hat I knit only took about 3 hours and so far I've got 3/4 of the baby hat done in about an hour of knitting (and some odd stitches snuck in during lecture. . .). Here's a photo of the work-in-progress baby hat: