This weekend I went to my mum’s for a birthday party for my niece Laura.  A couple of years ago I had started this shawl for her because she loves skulls,  so I finished it up.  It was modified from a Ravelry Pattern by kungen och majkis.  I decided to put the picture up because I thought it was a nice panorama of my mums house too.  The photo was taken by her boyfriend Andrew and I thought he did a nice job.

The Tweed Knot Stitch, pg 68 at the bottom of this hat was another with huge lateral spread.  Barbara didn’t warn me this time, but maybe I should have known.  You purl one round, then knit 1, knit 1 in the stitch below in the second round.  This knitting in the row below loosens things quite a bit. Tensions got back to normal with the Broken Diagonal Rib, pg 24.  I continued with the dark blue until I thought I would run out, then I finished the top of hat off while trying to stay as close to the pattern as possible. I had about ten inches of dark blue at the end so yeah me.  At this point it looked like a hot mess, dogs breakfast, pile of pooh, whatever your favourite negative phrase is.  

I went inside the hat and picked up a round of stitches from the back of the transition between the Tweed Knot and the Broken Rib and did an inch of k1p1 ribbing, then joined back to the cast on edge as I cast off, simulating a three needle cast off without one of the needles.  I think it is OK, given how bad it was at one point,  but it is pretty standard in shape for me.

I have done a count. I took a highlighter and went through my blog posts and the table of contents of my very adulterated copy of A Treasury of Knitting Patterns to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently missed anything. I had actually done a couple of stitches twice but c’est la vie. I crossed off 135 stitches. I started in February, so I think I am doing ok