gah! first!

and now for my actual comments!

if you are in remedial knitting, i am in the class where you get rubber knitting needles because they're afraid i might poke out my eyes.

i am so not knitworthy. but i keep trying.

and one of these days i will make something recognizable.

crocheting, however... well, i'm less likely to hurt myself with an acryclic hook.

B-E-A-UTIFUL. You are a much better knitter than you give yourself credit for! I still have not ventured into the scary world of fair isle/intarsia. Here's some inspiration for colorwork: http://lusciousgracious.com/blog/uploaded_images/sweater-777980.jpg She made that out of SCRAP YARN no less! Oh, someday, someday.

As for hat knitting in LA, who cares! I don't knit to be practical, I knit because I love it. Also, if you really want to make that sweater, take the pattern to your SnB. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes for someone to "translate" it for you.

I started knitting a year ago after we bought a house we couldn't move into for at least six months. I just finished my tenth sweater. Nothing fancy, but lots of snugly goodness. Since I have no more drawer space, and I don't love in Alaska, I'm turning my OCD toward Dulaan.

I LOVE HATS!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE HATS!!! I KNIT HATS, CROCHET HATS, SEW HATS! I don't care what anyone thinks. I LOVE HATS!

I also love your hat!

Faith

who cares what you knit as long as you are having fun! Besides, any stitch/patttern out there could be put into a hat, plus you don't need alot of yarn. THat way you can buy fancy/expensive yarn and not break the bank. No guilt!!

Nice hat, baby! I laughed at your kitty comments. I woke up this morning to the sound of my baby kitty (Loki -- Norse god of mischief and trickery) methodically knocking every little thing off of my dresser. Check out knitty.com and that book Last Minute Knitted Gifts. You'll find a bunch of stuff you will like, I think.

"...fool my non-knitting friends into thinking I am BADASS" bwaahaahaahahaha! That needs to be your first pattern name.
And the about.com dishrag? I would think that if one were to publish a pattern with a picture that it might be square or something (oops, was that me meowing?) so you are not so far from publishing you own, your very own bus-worthy patterns, right? I mean, if the perfection faeries didn't shoot down the non-squared dishrag, that means we all get to publish! woohoo, go Auntie Purl!

awww man, stop knitting these awesome hats. I'm getting so sad that I can't do it. :(

Awesome hat, Laurie!! Love it! But if you're at the stage where you're doing the "Think I'll Just Create My Own Pattern" knitting ... ya ain't remedial. Trust me. Now me? ... I look at your hat (which I bow down before ANYWAY) and I see your added color and I think ... HOW? But HOW does one change the color when knitting? Is it magic? How does one learn The Magic???

(See?... now THAT'S remedial!!! :))

Lurve the hat! Seriously, I'm showing the pictures to people and work and getting The Look but I don't care. Because the hat is that AMAZING!

Y'all know. The Look. The one that non-knitters give you when you go on and on and on about yarn and patterns and the way the yarn smells...

I *like* your hat. So there.

Thank you for the funnies - spy underwear & calling in stinky! I have become quite obsessed with Katrina aftermath and I needed this.

I was just thinking about how my yarn smells exactly like the library. Or maybe the Natural History Museum.

I, too, once had an episode involving copious amounts of Patons UpCountry. Then I snapped out of it and took it all back to Michael's. I'm glad to see it found its way to you and you're turning it all into such cute little hats. :)

We always called it "Indian" underwear(because it creeped up on you), but now that unfortunately is not politically correct to say that. The hat looks great!! I love the pink and grey!!!

I have been knitting socks. To get through my divorce and single motherhood of an 11-year-old boy when I am 49 and rising and trying to get back into the work shit when my line of work now pays one HALF of what it paid 5 years ago. Socks socks socks socks. I am even dying my own yarn in my crockpot (which I don't trust since I cooked beef stew in it a couple years ago and got food poisoning and threw up for 4 hours straight one night) for socks. Socks socks socks. I did knit the pieces for a sweater but have I sewn it together? Nope. But I've made 3 more pairs of socks in the meantime. Sock therapy.

The hat looks lovely! I love reading your blog-- so many tips and hints and good lively commentary. I'm a remedial knitter for life too-- I have about fifteen scarves now, all stripes and sizes.

<3

You just knit whatever your little heart desires. Hats, cat thingamajigs, mittens - who cares as long as you're happy knitting. When it starts to snow up here north of the Mason-Dixon, I will wonder why the hell I knit up a lacy freeze my butt off thing and not your hat.

Just got an email newsletter from Mary Maxim, and they have many colours of UpCountry on sale. At least, the Canadian Mary Maxim site. With the exchange rate, it might be a good deal. Or, the US site might have it too!

The hat looks awesome! You might check out a pattern I knit recently, the Nantasket Basket (http://tinyurl.com/d5c4a). It's almost as good as a hat, just upside down. And with a little felting to erase any mistakes you made. Plus, the slip-stitch colorwork to make the bricks? Super cute.

And I have to say, just looking at patterns doesn't make much sense to me either. They don't make sense until I sit down with the pattern and some yarn and needles. Just follow what the pattern tells you to do, and it magically all works out. Until you mess up. Which I do. A lot. But you know...go back to that first point. Pattern + yarn + needles makes more sense to me than just the pattern on its own.

I'm so jealous - I cant even find someone to help me learn how to knit!

Furthermore - I've never known anyone who has a Dyson. It sounds like they are worth the money?

Oh dear - I'm talking about vacuum cleaners now!

Love the hat... I've been crocheting like mad the last couple of weeks, but I'm going to have to take a knitting class.

Ohmigod, I'm sitting here with tears streaming from my eyes, and I keep yelling at my husband, "Now listen to this!" but can't read it out loud to him because I'm laughing too hard. Both my daughter and I * agree, you need to quit your workworkwork job and get a literary agent and devote your time to full-time writing. You are the funniest read on my bloglines. (* note: see, you appeal to a wide range of ages)

Stop calling your knitting remedial, it’s making the rest of us (or maybe just me) look bad. I love the color pattern! I finished my first hat (it's on my blog, go look!) and it only took me six months. And it was crochet, not knit. Those double pointed needles, circular needles and pattern thingies scare me.

*snort* stinky as a mediacl condition. *giggle*
Be careful of those Dyson Boys.
They really suck as boyfriends.

That hat is beautiful! When are you going to start selling your hats on ebay?!

I think your newest hat looks cool.

I LOVE gray, so nothing in gray could look bad.

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to knit other stuff.

You couldn't get me to make a doily if you paid me. I don't want to knit a poncho.

Does that make me a bad person? Here's where you say "NO!". Good!

So do whatcha want, with whatcha want.

But could you change your underwear, please?

Oh, and you can marry Mr. Dyson. I'm going to be a bigamist and marry Mr. Paper Towelling!

Hey Lady--I'm from the South--so I figure we 're almost on a first name basis! I think your hat is looking marvelous and it has inspired me to finally try color work--which frightens me to death! And I'm also thinking of posting a blog--which would be great strides for me and my depression, I hope, I think...maybe anyway.

You have a lot of talent and a lot of guts--and not just with your color-knitting!! You've gotten thru a hellious ('s that a word?) andyou're doing wonderfully. That living out loud--something I could never fully do--I admire so much!!

LOVE the hat....love the hat book. I also have the mitten book by the same authors, and LOVE IT!

You CAN do mittens. Just imagine how cute matching mittens to that hat would be!

I was going to post my blog....with the funky kids hat made from that book in which I used yarn dyed with Kool Aid....then realized not only did I NOT have a picture, but my blog hasn't been updated since February.

You say you aren't good at the maths but at least you rock at blogging!

I have a friend, her name is Mrs. Dyson. Truly.

Damnit. That's not the Dyson Animal vacuum, is it?? Because I've been lusting after that thing since I saw it on Ellen (LOVE YOU, Ellen Degeneres!).

Frick. Now I'm jealous of you not only for your blogging and knitting skills ... but now for your vacuum as well.

This is getting serious. Is there a Blog Stalker/Jealous Knitter/Vacuum Envy Anonymous anyone knows of???

Woo! She'saslippin. I dig it!

Beautiful hat! I love that book, and I love that pattern (I own the former and have knitted the latter), and I love the color combo you chose for it. Bravo! Even if it never does get cold enough in LA for you to wear it, Bravo. You need one of those slightly scary glass heads that sometimes model knitted hats and scarves; you can set it on your desk at work and it can model your lovely creations when it's too warm for you to do so. :)

uhmm would anyone hate me for admitting that I have a Dyson...?

and it is goooooooood.........

So cute! I love all your hats. Don't ever stop making them. I guess you could make other stuff too, just don't stop with the hats. What are you doing with all of them anyway?

A few comments....first off all, the hat? It is lurvely! I have not yet graduated to hats yet and I am dying to try one, but ya see, you scared me with them. Because you mentioned hats and math and me and math don't mix. I would have my AA degree by now if it weren't for math. I just refuse to take the classes.

Oh and Dyson? Love them! Got one and we shall never be parted.

And lastly...about the donations for the animals? Thank you! When it comes to the animals, you are a girl after my own heart.

That hat is really cute.

I thought when I first started knitting, that I'd never knit anything more complicated than scarves, and accepted that. Here we are, 5 years later, and I want to knit mittens, and sweaters and everything else, and I have KNIT SOCKS, and a SWEATER. And what's more, I want to do it more and more. So, you never know.

Ya know - as long as you enjoy what you're making, what does it matter.

And that is one spif-fay hat...

P.S. Hope the fam down south is okay!

Hey
Love the hat.... Thinking how I can make gobs of them for Christmas... Have you thought about felting them?

My boys and I have all adopted a new catchphrase: "Pleased as fur on a frog." HA! Love it. AND, love the hat too, by the way. Grey and pink are one of my fav combos. You don't give yourself the Knitting Credit you deserve, honestly.

You go with your badasshatknittin'self (but mittens are good, honey. Trust me.) And is that a REAL stitch marker I saw? Not your baby ring? Must mean you are a real (as opposed to an imaginary) knitter now.

I don't get it. But it's sure pretty.

I might have to get that book, I so love hats.

Love the hat. The stripey thing is so perty.

And yes, I donated $25 bucks to the humane society of the U.S. on Tuesday. Listen to Roy. Send money. He's a smart kitty. (Not to mention cute.)

re: stitches flying off of needles on their own accord

Since you're so into hats (which tend to be round), you might want to pick up a copy of "Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles" by Cat Bordi (Amazon's got it), which contains a wonderful technique for replacing all those slippery DPNs with two circulars, off of which stitches do *not* fly! And it can be used on anything knitted in the round, not just socks, so don't let the title fool you.

I was strictly a scarf-and-shawl sort of knitter myself until I stumbled across that book, because I never could get DPNs to behave long enough to finish something. Now I make gloves, socks, hats, you name it.

Happy knitting!

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Hi,
I'm a scarf junkie, all my girlfriends got scarf's now, guss it's time to try a hat..
a big Hello from the Netherlands
Heikke

where in san fernando vallley can i buy mary maxim latch hook rug yarn?