Tag: balaclava

Halfway through

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

Over the weekend I cast on for that balaclava and slowly made my way through the neck piece. Slowly, because I was doubting the size with every stitch I made. I had to tweak the pattern a bit because my yarn is thinner than the yarn they worked with (I cast on stitches for a bigger size and use measurements for the smaller size). I’ve done that before and it usually works out, but I found myself wondering how big our grandson actually is right now. I don’t have a clue… So weird. We’ve seen him two months ago, but that’s a long time for a baby.

Anyway, I kept going. The shaping was interesting and even kind of fun once I worked out what they meant (the pattern is not written row by row). I messed up a little bit (I was two stitches short), but fixed it without unraveling the whole thing. Now I need to knit a few more centimeters straight up and then there’s another lengthy explanation on how to work the top, but I think I understand what they want me to do, so it should go smoothly from here (famous last words?).

Casting on

~ Maggie ~ 7 Comments

As always other knitters posting about what they’re making their family for Christmas inspire me to pick up the needles and make some gifts too. I didn’t want to overwhelm myself though, so I thought I’d start by making a hat for my grandson. But then I remembered keeping hats on one year olds (and older toddlers) is quite hard. My girls all had those hats that are attached to neckwarmers. Do you know what I mean? Google didn’t. But I persevered and eventually found out (on Ravelry) that these hats are called balaclava’s. Who knew? (we don’t have a word for it in Dutch as far as I know)

Of course Ravelry has an overwhelming amount of patterns with very beautiful and intricate designs, but my knitting has been so off this year* that I chose this simple one. I have just the right yarn for it. Really soft and in a color that will go with whatever color coat he’ll have.

It’s still a big pattern to work through and patterns intimidate me even when I feel perfectly fine. I prefer winging it, but I can’t figure out how to construct a hat like this. But I have made things that are far more intricate than this, so I should be able to do it. I’ll keep you posted!

(*I deleted a long rant about my not-knitting-much this year. I think I’ve mentioned it before; it’s all connected. Depression, no knitting, no blogging. But I’m fighting my way back.)