*Wolfpup*

Wolves are multiplying.  They've been taken off the endangered species list here in Oregon.  And it's partly my fault.  I added one just this week.  Planning on adding one more soon.  Watch out!

It's knitting season.  I've been bit bad. When I saw this pattern last January, my knitting skills were basic. Knit. Purl. But I bought the pattern and began to teach myself cables.  Even attempted some simple lace patterns.

Then my sister said she wanted a warm hat for her birthday, and the project launched, full-speed. When the baby alpaca yarn arrived in the mail, there was less than a week till birthday day.  No worries.  Wolfpup gestation period is relatively short.  Out it popped and into the mail.

Haven't had so much fun and such happily knitting fingers in a long time.

*"Wolfpup"  a tiny owl knits pattern by Stephan Dosen
available at tinyowlknits.com 

Knitting on the Road

I suppose there are roads in the sky.  I knit most of this project there, flying home from Boston this past weekend.  The ribbing was finished before I left, plus a number of rows that secured the pattern.  A six-hour flight is just the place for making a piece move along.

"Sweater Seeds" (10-23-11) chronicled the bulk of a long-term knitting affair.  What wasn't said was that in the hasty and uncertain buying of yarn not recommended by the pattern and finding a pattern that was sort of but really not quite the way I envisioned the sweater and the crafting of the design as I knit that, oh my, there was a fair amount of yarn huddled down in the bag when the last stitch was cast off.  Since I'm short on knit caps/hats, making one to match the sweater was, of course, the answer.

Just as we began our descent for landing, I cast off the last stitch.  I love short knitting projects!  But now the next morning I'm on the road again, this time with my husband.  We're headed to Davis, California, a long drive from Portland by any set of measurements.  It's the perfect time to review the Things I get to do today and check off "finish the hat."

I grafted the back seam together and pondered the best finishing embellishment.  Pompoms are about the happiest things I know.  I wanted one of each delicious color attached to the top tassel.  Usually when one makes a pompom, it requires cardboard to wrap the yarn around.  But we are on the road, so I used my head and my hands instead.

Finger pompom maker

Finger-made pompoms

 A few miles closer to California and the hat is ready to wear, so bright and perky it makes me wish I had a tail to wag.

The camera missed the wagging tail