Crocheting (and Knitting) Commuter

On Saturday morning, I had the wonderful opportunity to sleep in as long as I wanted. It was the first time in two weeks I was able to do so. The trip up to Cooperstown the weekend prior dashed all hopes of a sleepy Saturday or Sunday (or even Monday) morning. The trip out to California during the week messed with my sleep schedule, too. (Not terrible jet lag, but definitely annoying.)

A glorious Saturday morning indeed - I was sleeping so soundly and peacefully... until the FedEx guy rang the doorbell. It was 10 am so I wasn't too upset about getting up and it did mean I would not have to drive out to the FedEx facility to pick up the package during the week. So I was up and wide awake but I had no desire to do the housework that needed to be done. No - instead I was drawn into the craft room where I decided, out of the blue, to try and knit socks.



I got out a pair of circular needles and some fabulous yarn bought back in October. I was amazed that I remembered how to knit. No refresher from the book - I just knew it. It was pretty cool. And I managed to figure out how to correctly use the circular needles (also pretty cool). Voila!



My gauge was looking good, too.



While I was having fun knitting away, I realized the actual patterns in the book I was using were written specifically for double pointed needles...which I don't own. And being knew to knitting socks, I wasn't ready to have to translate double pointed needle directions to circular needle directions. You veteran sock knitters out there - it may be an easy thing. But for me at the time, I wanted something easy so it would encourage me to keep going.

I frogged the sock I started but I wasn't upset. It was great knowing that I could use circular needles and I had finally tried learning to knit socks (see resolution #3). I decided to check out my Knitting-A-Day calendar (which I only seem to update twice a month) to see if there was an easy pattern to try. Ta-da! Jacgue's Easy Beanie on Wednesday April 23rd! (which is today - though I started the cap on Saturday)

My first attempt was frogged. I cast on all 85 stitches and 3 rows when I dropped a stitch and couldn't find the loop to fix it. Instead, it unraveled in the middle. The ball of brown wool was rewound and I put down the needles for another day - in this case, the next day - Sunday. I cast on and zooooooom! I was knitting at a decent pace with nary an error. Here's my progress to date:



Close-up:


Who knows if the hat will fit when I'm done with it. I didn't have size 6 needles so I used size 7. But I don't care if it fits - I'm just excited to finish my first knitting project. :)