I am in love! well...

After making so many things for others, I've decided to make something for myself. It's the Norwegian Star Cap from the Hat's On! book that I just love! And...I love this hat! Love it love it love it!

I found some Ella Rae wool in Navy and white the other day that I'm using. (I've used it before for the Stocknitte Watch Cap pattern from the same book. It's got a great finish to it when you've made it for hats. I'll bet it would be great for a cabled sweater..hmmmm.....anyway...back to the project at hand...

Rather than dwell that the 2nd was the 5 year mark of the day that I fell and I'm still waiting Gov...for workman's comp to fix my knee...etc...I started on something that a) I could do something about and b) was much more productive that think California really wanted injured workers to get 'fixed'...Here's where I was after the first day. Hard to see the turn up row-I should know better than to take pictures away from daylight. But I am soooooooo thrilled that I'm getting the 'hang' and the flow of the rhythm of this two-color/two-handed knitting.

Here's where I finished off last night. I've ripped the area out about 5 times trying to get the hem stitched in where I like it.It finally (I'm praying) is in the right place and lays nice and flat on the fold over hemed area. I've done it shorter and taller than this particular area. I even went past the top of the next segment of this bottom band thinking I would just go back and sew it up . Nope, the more I thought about it, the more I reminded myself how much I really hate sewing up after the knitting is done. I like to be DONE when I have casted off a project and woven in the ends.

One trick I've found was to switch to the longer circular needles than the 16" I usually use for hats. It helps me to slightly stretch out the knitting so the yarn in my left hand doesn't get pulled to much thus causing the puckering.

Why am I so happy? New Years Day of 2007...this was one of my goals for the year-to learn Fair Isle knitting. Which technically I did with this hat...

and with the purple/grey hat in the lower, right side of this picture...

but I was never happy with the way they both puckered. Thanks to all who have posted information or videos over the past years that I've been soaking up the how-to's...I have finally figured this out-well at least for this project! I'm off to continue this hat and keep something positive going through these fingers!