handknits for hazel

While I enjoy knitting, sewing usually wins out when I’m at home. Knitting, however, is the perfect craft for traveling! I had splurged on a blanket kit from Purl Soho a while back and had been slowly knitting a row or two each night.

With the kids in bed early and not much else to do in our rental house, I found ample time to finish it up. As you can see, it’s a nice easy project – just rows and rows of knitting (perhaps a bit boring at times, but I was motivated to keep going to get to the next color!). The yarn is Purl Soho’s Worsted Twist in seven lovely colors. It’s super soft and squishy and knits up really nicely. Warm, too! There were several chilly nights in Florida, and I loved having it on my lap as I was knitting.

Love that hot pink!

I had a tiny bit left of each color and without giving it too much thought, I decided to use up the extra bits by making a matching hat.

I’m not much for following patterns, so I’m pretty sure this isn’t the yarn recommended for this pattern and I’m quite certain that I used much smaller needles than I should have for this particular yarn (gauge, what?) It’s only by sheer luck that I was able to actually make a hat out of the leftovers (for a while there I thought it might have to be open at the top!), and that it actually fits! (For the moment, anyway! You can see her ear already peeking out in the photo below…)

The hat pattern is the Swirl Hat, and it’s actually the second one I’ve made. Two years ago I made one for Max – also while vacationing in Florida. I took one of my favorite photos of him modeling my honey cowl, and I couldn’t resist taking photos of Hazel in the same spot.

Next up on the knitting list? Perhaps a new hat for me! I’m loving the Swift hat which is included in the newly published book Journey, by Jane Richmond and Shannon Cook, or perhaps the Jul hat by Wiksten…