Early this morning, I looked through my stash of yarns to find a bulky weight yarn that I could use to make a hat for my aunt who is in the hospital. She has lost almost all of her hair and when I went to visit her, she had on a very thin surgery cap. She has been wearing a wig for a long time now, but the wig was not on her head during my visit.
I thought about a knitted skull type hat for her that would cover her head, provide some warmth (she seems to be cold a lot) and also serve as an alternative to the thin surgerical cap that a nurse put on her head.
When my aunt was up and around she was a very stylish dresser who wore beautiful clothes, shoes and hats. It is sad to see her in a position where she doesn't have control of her outward appearance. Of course I am more concerned with her health, but I thought that I could easily make her a cute hat that would replace her wig and also enhance her appearance while she is bedridden.
I finally chose a colorful varigated yarn by Lion Brand from their thick and quick collection. The thicker the yarn,the faster the rows form. I chose a circular knitting needle that is 10 mm wide to knit with using the magic loop method.
The next challenge was to find a free pattern just to get me started. When I crochet a hat, I don't need a pattern. I start at the top, and continue to increase until I get to the size that I want and then continue until the hat is long enough. I even know how to add or change stitches to make a brim.
I am not that skilled in knitting. I knit a hat from the brim up and I don't know how to determine how many stiches I need to cast on for an adult sized hat so I had to do some research to find a free pattern on Ravelry for a knitted hat using bulky type yarn so that I could get a proper guage.
I chose an easy pattern, and got started casting on my yarn for the hat using the long tail cast on method which I prefer.
Then I remembered that today was half price Monday at my favorite thrift store, so I put my project down to go to the store. I found all sorts of good deals. I was able to get a spiral vegetable cutter that lets you make zucchini noodles for spaghetti instead of regular pasta. The machine was new in the box unopened for $3.00. I also bought some other things that I won't go into right now that I can use with my pottery for less than $10.00.
When I made it back home, I started putting my things away and then I got distracted cleaning up the garage to store my new purchases. When I started to get hungry, I came back into the house and realized that my knitting project was still waiting for me and that I had not posted yet. Arrrgh!!!
All I have to show the needlework community is the yarn and the pattern that I chose. I will have to wait until next Monday to show the finished project.
I still got a lot of things accomplished today. My garage is neat, clean and organized for my pottery projects. I chose three different skeins of yarn that I am going to use to make some quick gifts, and I started on my aunt's hat.
Enjoy your evening.