The Knitting Pirate

Meant to be worn either slouchy or as a beanie with the brim folded for double warmth over your ears, the Passing Days Hat is just perfect for crisp days! The colours of the yarn remind me of the woods in autumn, after most of the leaves have fallen and everything has turned to subtle dark shades.

Check out the Passing Days Hat in Ravelry's pattern library, or click the button to add it to your cart:

I was reminded of the "Fall" section of John Denver's "Season Suite":

Reflections in the water like shadows in my mind
Speak to me of passing days and nights and passing time
The falling leaves are whispering, winter's on its way
I close my eyes remembering the warmth of yesterday

And so this became the Passing Days hat. I hope it keeps you warm as the days grow colder!

YARN and GAUGE
The hat is knit in a variegated DK-weight yarn over 144 stitches, and fits a 21.5”/54.6 cm head with quite a bit of ease if worn with the brim unfolded, and more closely with the brim folded up. The size can be adjusted by changing yarn and/or needles, or by adding more repeats of the stitch pattern (just make sure to end with an even number of stitches in your final decrease round).

The sample hat was knit with one 100g skein of Shirsty Cat Just DK SW in the Alstroemeria colourway, with about 15g left over. If you make the hat bigger, you may need more than one skein of yarn. Gauge is 28 stitches/4 inches in stockinette, and one repeat of the eight-stitch pattern is about an inch, unstretched - the slipped stitches pull the work in a little.

YOU WILL NEED
16" circular needle (optional, but recommended) and a set of double-pointed needles, size US 3 (3.25 mm) or the size needed to get gauge for your particular yarn, a stitch marker for the beginning of the round, plus a darning needle to weave in ends. You may want to use a split stitch marker as a cable "needle".

The Passing Days Hat is available for purchase on Ravelry.

Important Copyright Information: The Passing Days Hat knitting pattern is © 2019 Knitting Pirate. You may not sell or otherwise distribute copies of this pattern, but you may absolutely sell the hats you make with appropriate credit given for the design. If you have any questions about what you can or can’t do with this pattern, please feel free to contact me on Ravelry.

I have just one last skein of the Unicorn Spit fibre to spin!

840 yards of finished (though unwashed) three-ply yarn and just over a hundred grams left to go. It's really neat to see how the big stripes of colour in the fibre get so blended into the yarn, which is exactly the heathery desaturated colour that I was hoping for when I chose the "ingredients" for the blend.

I really hope that I come up with enough for a sweater - and if not, I have more yarn (of course I do) that I can use as a supplement. I think a few navy stripes on the sleeves or around the hem might look really nice.

I finally figured out how to do the patterned crown decreases so that I could finish knitting my Passing Days hat, just in time for an unseasonable cold snap.

It fits wonderfully and I'm so happy with the way it came out! Friend Stef came over earlier this week to take pictures of me wearing it, and we had a lot of fun doing the photoshoot. I'll be writing up the pattern for release in the next few days, so keep an eye out for it!

On the subject of cold snaps, I need a new pair of Fleeps (some people call them flip-top or convertible mittens). I'd like to use this Corriedale handspun for the outside, and line the wrists and mitten-top with this blue silk. I spun both yarns last summer with this project in mind, and I'm excited to get started. So far I've swatched the Corriedale:

I like the drape of it on size 5 (3.75mm) needles, but I want my mittens to be a little more dense, so I tried again with size 4 (3.5mm). It's not much difference - 18 stitches/4 inches as opposed to 17 - but enough to be noticeable, and I think the finished fleeps will be better for it. Hopefully they won't be so thick that I can't move my fingers!

Friends, I cannot thank you enough. Another six copies of the Sneaux Zone pattern were sold in October, bringing the total sales up to 18. I added some of my own money to the sum, and together we donated ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS to the ALS Association.

Here's a snip of the donation receipt:

Thank you, thank you, thank you - and I hope you enjoy knitting and wearing your Sneaux Zone hats! :)

An Etsy gift card, combined with a sale on some of the (discontinued) Ashland Bay multi-coloured top, combined with a little egging on from a friend, combined with the need to have a little bit of retail therapy, all came together and thwacked me over the head, resulting in a delivery of spinning fibre arriving at my house.

I bought these two braids of merino-silk in the "Del Mar" and "McKenzie" colourways, which may or may not end up in the same project...

...and these four braids of 21.5 micron merino, in the colourways "Sage," "Granada," "Riverstone," and "Borealis" - which will *definitely* become some sort of a fade/gradient project.

But I can't start those until I finish the Unicorn Spit, so to that end I set myself to spinning over the weekend, and now I have four completed skeins (adding up to 570 yards of three-ply, before washing) and three more to spin. This should add up to about a thousand yards all together, which ought to be about enough for a sweater, right? Here are the bobbins in my homemade shoebox kate before I plied them:

It didn't take long before I got frustrated at the lack of tension on the shoebox kate, so I punched two more holes in it and made a brake band out of some scrap yarn. One end is tied to the box, the other is tied to a rubberband which I can hook to any of those binder clips, depending on how much tension I need. The plying is going much more smoothly now, thank goodness!

I sold twelve!! copies of the Sneaux Zone pattern in September, which is pretty awesome - that's just about $60 that I'm going to send to the ALS Association. I'm thrilled... but I would like to send more! So I'm going to keep the fundraiser going for another month. All sales of the Sneaux Zone pattern through the end of October will be donated! Tell your knitting friends that the Sneaux Zone Hat is available for purchase and still raising money to fight ALS!

A blizzard at the top of the mountain falls softly onto the existing base, leaving beautifully smooth mounds of snow for you to play in. The Sneaux Zone hat is perfect for keeping your head warm before you put your helmet on - and after a long day on the slopes, you can stylishly hide your messy hair while you walk to dinner or back to your car.

Of course, you don’t need to be anywhere near a ski area to rock this hat! Sneaux Zone has an optional facing or even a full lining, which is knit in a lighter-weight yarn on the same size needles. Three layers of wool make it a super-warm hat for any time you’re in need of extra protection from the elements.

**~~~~~~~~ IMPORTANT NOTICE ~~~~~~~~**
In memory of friends, *all proceeds* from the sale of this pattern through the end of September 2019 will be donated to the ALS Association to support treatments and research towards a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). You can find out more about ALS here.
**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

YARN and GAUGE
Sneaux Zone is knit with two contrasting colours of worsted weight yarn, plus sport weight yarn if you wish to include a lining or a facing. The sample hat was made in Cascade 220 in burgundy and white, using approximately half a skein (110 yd/201 m) of each colour, and the lining with almost an entire skein of Cascade 220 Sport Superwash (136 yd/124 m) in aqua, all on US 6 (4mm) needles at 23 stitches to 4”/10 cm (for the outer hat; the lining is a little looser), and fits a 21.5”/54.6 cm head with a little bit of ease. Omitting the facing will result in a looser-fitting hat.

The hat is charted for 120 stitches, but can be adjusted for size by changing yarn and/or needle size.

YOU WILL NEED
16" circular needle (optional, but recommended) and a set of five double-point needles, size US 6 (4mm) or the size needed to get gauge for your particular yarn, a stitch marker for the beginning of the round, plus a darning needle to weave in ends. Stitch markers to indicate each section of the hat can be helpful.

The Sneaux Zone Hat is available for purchase on Ravelry.

Important Copyright Information: The Sneaux Zone Hat knitting pattern is © 2019 Knitting Pirate. You may not sell or otherwise distribute copies of this pattern, but you may absolutely sell the hats you make with appropriate credit given for the design. If you have any questions about what you can or can’t do with this pattern, please feel free to contact me on Ravelry.

I'm super excited about this one! It's been a long time coming and some folks have been asking me when it will finally be released. How does tomorrow sound?

That's right - the Sneaux Zone hat is in the final proofreading stage, and it should be going live tomorrow! You'll have plenty of time before the weather turns cold (see note below) to knit a few for winterholiday presents... or maybe just for yourself.

In memory of friends, *all proceeds* from the sale of this pattern through the end of September 2019 will be donated to the ALS Association to support treatments and research towards a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). You can find out more about ALS here.

Note: For those of us in the northern hemisphere, of course. If you're in the southern hemisphere, you'll *really* have plenty of time before the weather turns super cold again...

It wasn't really my intent to ignore the blog for months, but (not for the first time) the summer got away from me!

I'm almost done writing up the pattern for the Sneaux Zone hat! A few people have messaged me on Ravelry to ask when it will be released, and the best answer I have is... SOON! Possibly even this weekend! I just need to look over the charts once more, make sure all the words are in the right order, and take some glamour shots. Here's the view from the top, which comes together into a star:

ALL proceeds from sales of the pattern for the first few weeks will be donated to the ALS Association.

The first of my slip-stitch Wild Tide socks are now past the heel turn and gusset. I had to switch from the Flexi-Flips to four DPNs once I picked up the gusset stitches, because the fabric was uncomfortably straining at the corners, and... I didn't go back. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with so many stitches on just two needles, even if they are flexible in the middle?

I'm really pleased with the way the slip-stitch pattern breaks up the pooling a little bit without obscuring it entirely, though I do wish that the spiraling had been more consistent all the way down the leg. (That's probably just my gauge changing a tiny bit, rather than anything to do with the yarn.) Now that football season is starting up again, I'm expecting to get some more time on the couch to knit and watch the games. Of course there are other projects to work on as well, but those can wait for another post :)

I started the Wild Tide socks with the slip stitch pattern on the new Flexi-Flip needles, and I feel as if I've almost knit enough of the leg to form an opinion of them. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's a very good opinion...

I'm used to knitting my socks with five DPNs, so figuring out how to hold two needles that were basically folding in half was an interesting challenge. The first few changeovers from one needle to the next were really awkward, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. It's kind of like how I *can* knit socks with just four DPNs, but I find five more comfortable. Maybe after I've knit the rest of the sock, they'll feel more at home in my hands.

I like that the needles have one pointier side and one more blunt, but I definitely prefer the pointier side, and that means remembering to turn each one around as it comes free of the stitches and becomes the next working needle. It would be better if the two sides were two different colours, to make it easier to quickly tell which is which.

With my usual sock knitting method, I "rotate" the sock every few rounds by knitting a few extra stitches onto each needle, which helps to minimize any laddering. With the Flexi-Flips, there are only three needles, and the first and last few stitches of each one are so awkward that I can't imagine how one would easily do that.

At least the sock looks nice! There are some definite laddering issues at both sides where the needles don't meet well, but I think they should work their way out in the wash. I'm quite pleased with the stitch pattern and how it's breaking up the spiral pooling a little bit without hiding it completely.

Meanwhile, since I didn't buy anything at MD Sheep and Wool, I felt very little guilt about making a post-festival purchase from Etsy.

I got these two skeins of Malabrigo Sock (top: 120 Lotus; bottom: 863 Zarzamora) at two separate shops about a year apart from each other, thinking (at the times) that sock yarn makes the best souvenirs... but never considering that they might go together.

Then, as knitters are wont to do, I started thinking that maybe they *should* go together. But when I pulled them out of the sock yarn tote and looked at them in the same light, I realized how close in value they were. So what they *really* needed, I concluded, was a skein of speckled yarn that pulled colours from both of them as a go-between. Then I found this Sheeps Clothing Yarn Co. Fable Fingering in Nebula Speckle, and knew that it was Just Right.

No idea *how* they're going to go together just yet (a shawl, perhaps?) but whooo! This is just the most perfect addition, isn't it?

After some months of ignoring them, I've finished the green stripy socks! I'm so pleased that the stripes line up perfectly from sock to sock. (I mean, I did that on purpose, but I'm still pretty pleased at how well it worked out.) This is about as plain a sock as it gets: twenty rounds of k2, p2 ribbing, followed by an awful lot of stockinette interrupted by a regular ol' flap heel, and a star toe with four points. The yarn is Austermann Step in colourway 96 Forest Green.

My original intention with these socks had been to try the Flexi-Flip needles with them, but that totally didn't work for reasons... primarily that while everyone else seems to agree that a US size 1 needle is 2.25 mm, Addi's size 1 Flexi-Flips are 2.5 mm. Since then, I've acquired a set in 2.25 mm, and as soon as the green socks were done I cast on for a new sock with this Silkie Socks that Rock in the "Walking on the Wild Tide" colourway, which was from their sock club some years ago. I got this yarn only a few months ago, from someone at our local knitting night. (Thanks!)

I'm planning to do something fairly simple again, but with columns of slipped stitches to attempt to break up the pooling a little bit, and an eye of partridge heel for a change. A review on the Flexi-Flips will be forthcoming once I get a little more used to them, too.

This year's Maryland Sheep and Wool was a whole new kind of experience - the plan had been to go with Mom, but Dad and Michael joined us for the day too. Nothing really jumped out at me as something I needed to buy, but I did drop off the fleece that Carrie and I bought some years ago with a processor who said she'll have it back to us by mid-October. The only thing I brought home was this picture of the alpacas: