Lots more new knits!

I've been busy with lots of knitting! I've continued with lots of Christmas knits. I've been mostly using stash yarn, since most Christmas gifts are so small and there are so many things you can make, why not? That hat you see to the left is another one of those hats I make. The colors look much different on the computer than in real life. The bottom stripe is a regular green, followed by a regular red. Next is a bit more bluish of a green, and the top is made of the same yarn as one of my recent hats. The whole hat is made of wool, so it will be very cozy! To make it, I cast on 72 stitches, then worked a simple knit one purl one rib. As you can see, I used four different yarns, and pretty much just switched whenever I ran out of one. Once I decided it was time to decrease, I decreased one every 6 stitches, one every 5 stitches, one every 4 stitches, etc. until it was decreasing every stitch.

Here's another hat I made. Now this one is a bit different...I used the Snowy Triangle hat from Handknit Holidays...at least I tried. Turns out it would be WAY too small unless you use the specific yarn they call for. It's knit from the top down, so you increase instead of decrease. So I decided just to continue increasing until it was wide enough, then I knit until it was pretty much long enough, and I finished with a 1x1 rib. It's a bit shorter and wider than my other hats, but it looks quite nice! It is made out of the same yarn as the top of the above hat.

I made another ornament. I am probably going to embroider this one since it's a plain green that will blend in perfectly with the Christmas tree if it doesn't have something embroidered on it. This is made out of the same yarn as the bottom stripe of the first hat on this post. I really like how the ornament turned out! These ornaments are nice because I can make one or two in the evening when I get home from school and still have plenty of time to do my homework and practice my viola! Hopefully I can find some other projects that are that small, because the hats either take two weekdays or one day if I don't have homework or need to practice my viola, which is pretty rare. But these ornaments can be whipped up in just an hour or two. Maybe less, but I've never actually timed it. In case you forgot, these ornaments are the first pattern in Handknit Holidays by Melanie Falick. There's a pattern for a small and a large ornament, and I've been using the small. Since I use such thicker yarn than they do, they turn out probably bigger than the big size pattern they have in the book.

And here's a pretty round pillow I made! It's actually crocheted, since I decided it's easier to make something round with crochet. This is the stripy front. The back is pretty much all one color. What I did was I crocheted, increasing, until it was pretty much as wide in diameter as I wanted, then I started crocheting straight around until it was about as tall as I wanted it, and then I began decreasing. Once I had a hole left of about 4 inches in diameter, I sewed in a lining and we stuffed it up. Then I sewed on a top for the lining and closed it up with a little more crochet. It worked really well. I chose a dark blue lining and it looks splendid with the colors of the pillow. This pillow is made entirely out of cotton.

And here is my last finished creation...it is a very abstract cotton pillow. I used lots of intarsia. At first I was going to do polka dots all the way through, but it didn't work that great so I decided to do all sorts of diagonals and triangles, and that worked quite well and I decided to continue with that. I gave it to my mom for her birthday, and she likes it!

I have started another knitting, also. I am making a chevron scarf, kind of like the one in Scarf Style that is by Debbie Bliss, and I am making the adult version of that. I've only done a few rows of it, but it's already working great!