We're back!

Hey everyone! Sorry we've been away for so long.  Earlier this year we bought a house, which we (totally the Royal We - Lee did all of the work) have since been renovating and slowly moving our belongings into.  We can see the end of this whole process in the not too distant future, so I figured that now would be a great time to share some of the projects that I worked on while Lee was moving walls and stuff.  I'll be posting some of our creations from last year over the next few weeks as well, as some of them deserve their own posts, and some will get them anyway.

Since I was working with very limited crafting supplies during the renovation, I only managed to work on a few knitting and crochet projects, since they take up little space and could easily be thrown into a bag and moved.  Not that I'd ever throw my projects.  :)

A friend requested a few projects to give as baby shower gifts, so I made the bobble bearded beanie by Ashlee Prisbrey and the Minion Hat and Diaper Cover with Suspenders by Ruth McColm.  Both projects were relatively easy, the patterns were well written, and being so small they didn't take up a whole lot of time.  I probably spent three weeks combined on both, but I'd only get to work on it for short periods of time every few days.

Bobble Bearded Beanie

Minion Hat with Diaper Cover and Suspenders

Lee had been asking for another hat since I made him one back in 2012.  I selected the Wasatch Backcountry Hat pattern by Christy Wall, and chose to use my handspun yarn from which Lee had picked out the fiber at the Michigan Fiber Fiesta back in May 2012.  The fiber was cjkoho designs Superwash Merino in the Stewart colorway.  Four ounces gave me a DK weight 2-ply yarn, for which I apparently did not measure the yardage after spinning.  This was one of my more recent spinning projects (probably mid-2014), so the spinning was much more consistent than my earlier attempts, but as with most things, it's really easy for me to point out all of the flaws in my own work.  Late in December, the 28th to be exact, I started knitting the hat.  Based on Lee's first hat, I knew I wanted to make the hat just a little bit shorter, which actually worked based on my gauge and row count calculations for when to decrease.  Knitting with handspun yarn, even flawed handspun like mine, is amazing.  I highly recommend it to everyone. Apparently, my handspun yarn was self-striping, which is awesome.  Anyone know how to tell what sort of cool thing handspun yarn will do when its used?

From fiber...

To yarn...

To hat