A Verdant Triptych

An integral part of my knitting addiction two years ago was the repeated making-up of this lovely Cabled Glovelets pattern by Meg White in as many different yarns as my budget would allow.  A pretty simple fingerless mitt pattern, it gives enough lee-way to add your own special touches.  For this version, mine was adding the pearly beads to the inside of the cable crosses - nice and elegant against the marvellously chunky green Iceland Madil Yarns.

verdant cosy smooshiness

Having fallen rather hard for said deliciously soft yarn, I was thankful that there was still enough left to make something else with it...  But what?  There wasn't, sadly, enough for a nice, long scarf, or I'd have made it up in a heart-beat, but there was enough for a complementing hat.  And thus the Verdant Cap was born.  Well, really it was more cobbled together from a couple of disparate patterns that would, I assured myself, fit my circumferencely-well-endowed noggin.  So really, it was brought to life, Frankenstein-wise, from bits of other hats.  A Franken-Hat, if you will.  With pearls.  And scars.  It was, after all, my first ever attempt at a hat.

verdant cranium cosiness with added mwah ahahahaaaaaah

And so, like all good stories, there was a happy ending.  Until 2 years later, when a fair maiden (no guffawing at the back, thank you) stumbled across the remnants of greeny goodness after emptying her sock wool stash all over the floor.  Yes, I know: sock wool doesn't count as stash, so really it's an oxymoron. And no, I don't know why a ball of 10-ply thick goodness was in with the 4-ply sock skeiny loveliness, either.  Yet there it was, looking for all intents and purposes like it was there just waiting to be discovered and made into something WONDERFUL.  

But this was where the trouble started, you see.  There was only 100 metres or so left of the ball.  After starting with a total of THREE BALLS OF SMOOSHY GORGEOUSNESS (MWAH HAH HAH HAAAAAAAAAAH)  What?  I'm channelling my inner Count...  I had just under a ball left and not a lot of options.  

Uncle Ravelry came to the rescue, with, not so much a pattern, but an idea... Necklets!  Neck-Warmers!  Cowlettes!  Hoodettes!  Neck-Cosies!  

Taking the cable pattern from the Cabled Glovelets; casting-on around 100 sts and knitting in the round; adding a few more k2,p2 ribs here and there to match the hat; and adding a liberal dash of pearly whiteness.

Et voilà!  The Verdant Necklet was born.  

verdant necky warmthness

And boy, is it warm!

Bait

moebius fish
aka arty-farty shot

HUZZAH!  I've found my camera cable so I can finally add peekchures to my second abc-along post of the year!

So, yes.  The infamous Fish Hat [Dead or Alive] by Thelma Egberts from the Winter 2008 issue of Knitty.  And lots of 'em!  I was a little remiss, really, as I was intending to make some of these for the four little boys in England for their Christmas in 2008 but time was not of the essence.  (I must point out that the Amazon vouchers that I sent were gleefully spent on Thomas the Tank Engine stuff instead!)  And essence of time was missing this year too, as these hats are only now winging their way across the Channel to their unsuspecting recipients.  Hey, what's a month between friends?  (If I really wanted to be pedantic, I could point out that Mr JC was more than likely born in March, anyway, so I'm actually early!  Heh!)

one for o

one for s and one for j

and a half-fish beanie for B

I suspect I really need to start my 2010 Christmas knitting, oh, round about now, if I have any chance of getting them done in time... Going by my current rate of success anyway!

:: edges away from the wronicles feeling rather sheepish... ::

(or should that be fishish?)