knitted hats

I should really go out more often (NB. I probably would if I could somehow stitch on the go). There are so many wondrous things one can learn in the course of a short walk - for example, if the pavement is reduced to half of its width due to roadworks, there WILL be some disgusting stuff in the middle of it which thus you cannot avoid. Also, a fellow mum from the school WILL NOT recognise you while passing you in the street; however, you can baffle a complete stranger into greeting you by simply smiling at her (if a weird noise between a hiccup and a burp... a hiccurp?... can be classified as greeting). And yes, I DO have every single issue of various cross stitch magazines the town`s charity shops have to offer.

But my biggest achievement for today (not counting the posting of my latest magazine piece this morning) is that I finally managed to buy a set of 4 mm circular needles!!! I know it doesn`t sound much, but after spending my entire Saturday hunting for wool in the right shade of green, followed by wasting half of my Sunday dropping in and out of shops to get the required needles for said wool, it is a major fete. (True, there is only a limited number of shops that are open on a Sunday but the fact that I even barged in a furniture store (!) should tell you all about my desperation).

Anyway, this whole Hat Saga started last week with this:

In the top left corner is my Epic Hat Fail - a real shame because it`s a beautiful yarn and the hat is a perfect fit but, alas, when I put it on, I look like the only thing missing is a shopping trolley full of aluminium cans. The rest is just some of my finds of this weekend-long hunt for yarns and needles: with the speckled creamy one, I started this Sirdar pattern (the nutmeg coloured pull-on hat in the top left corner of the pattern pictures), and I`m going to knit the same hat with the green speckled yarn too (now that I have the UK 8 needles... I have several pairs but they all have something on them, and I prefer circular needles anyway). The cute sock wool was practically thrown at me at Lidl`s - after I bought 4 very similar skeins in a charity shop... Oh, and in the course of my wanderings, I also became the proud owner of about half-a-dozen circular needles of various sizes (everything except 4 mm, obviously).

See, the calamity all this knitting can cause? I`d better stick to cross stitch!