That’s probably true of most knitters. The observation has been made more than once that knitting and cats go together. I’m starting another hat after scarcely finishing one. I spent some time picking the cat hair out of it only to notice that more was getting caught in it. I looked down at my shirt to find that Keaton had left abundant evidence of his presence in my life.

This hat will be like the one I just finished, in that it will be made of acrylic and will go in the box for the local police officers. This time however, I’m going to use a cast on method taught to me by my dear friend Kit. Instead of measuring and remeasuring and obsessively casting on over and over again I’m going to use yarn from the other end of the ball.

I’m always irritated during the first row of a hat, but the cleverness of Kit, who has dog hair in her knitting instead, has made this one that much easier.

A couple of weeks ago, I questioned if I would ever be able to cast on for a hat just once and be satisfied with the length of the tail left over.

It took me many cast ons to get this hat going. I even got to the end of the first row when I started to question the pattern. It called for 102 stitches for the large size of hat and this seemed perfectly reasonable until I got to the end of the row and didn’t have enough stitches to complete the 2×2 rib that I was doing. I was then super annoyed at the designer for asking for 102 stitches when that clearly wouldn’t work for a 2×2 rib pattern. I was just about to leave a comment about it when I happened to re-read the pattern, as one does, or should, when I noticed that the pattern is not, in fact, a 2×2, it’s a 2×1.

*sigh*

I ripped it all out, cast on 100 stitches and proceeded with the normal hat that I carry around in my memory.

There is an answer to the cast on conundrum. It’s a very nice answer taught to me by my friend Kit, who is an extremely knowledgeable and accomplished knitter. I’m not positive she hasn’t sold her soul to accomplish such proficiency. It’s to not measure for a tail at all, you just use a second strand of yarn either from another ball or from the other end of the skein.  It’s just that I’m stubborn. I had already wound the falling-apart skein into a nice, neat ball and didn’t want to rewind it into something else. Like a super useful and handy yarn cake.

The hat has made it to the crown,

without being thrown,

ready for the decreases,

until the knitting ceases.

I’m not sure why I didn’t take any pictures, but a couple of weeks ago I spent an afternoon sitting with my friends (and doing a little shopping) at the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair. It’s a lovely fair with vendors lining the arena of the Salt Lake County Equestrian Park & Event Center. Some days you just need to be surrounded by like minded individuals. Here, I was surrounded by knitters, crocheters, spinners, and walls upon walls of fiber of all kinds. It was glorious. My friend Elizabeth let us sit with her in her booth. She makes the most beautiful spindles. I had been thinking about obtaining one of her creations for a while and had made up my mind that I was going to buy one of her kates. I may or may not have also come home with another spindle.

It was hard to choose from all the gorgeous pieces but I eventually decided on these beauties.

I came home with this gorgeous pile of skeins is from Greenwood Fiberworks. I think it wants to be a shawl.

I was feeling so crafty when I got home that I just had to create something. I was a little too unsure of my spinning skills to try and spin something so I made stitch markers.

The next Tuesday, I dug some fiber out of my stash and packed it into my knitting bag along with my first spindle and headed off to Knit Night. Elizabeth got me started on the new spindle and I’ve been spinning a tiny bit on both spindles most days ever since.

Today this is what my desk looks like.

I’m not sure why I thought this was blog-worthy, but here it is. I always have several projects going on at once. The dishcloth is a housewarming gift for a friend who just bought a house. The cross stitch is one I’ve had going on for years and I just gout out again because the spirit of Halloween crafting has wrought upon me. The real mess is under the desk and on the dining room  craft room table behind me.

I finally got the first watch cap to a point where I like to think it is going well. There is a stitch or two that is out of place but I think I’m going to try to ignore that.

Who am I kidding? There’s no way I could ignore it.  I let the column of stitches unravel and hooked it back up with a crochet hook

When you add hugs, kisses, a pony, and flowers to your hubby’s shopping list: