finishing

That pesky baby blanket is still growing and growing.  When I finish it--and make no mistake, dear readers, I will finish it--it will officially be The Biggest Thing I've Ever Knitted.  You might recall that I was waffling about whether or not I'd be giving it away.  Now, after logging so many hours of my life working on the project, I feel safe in saying that the blanket will not be going anywhere.  I couldn't bear to let it leave now.  We've bonded, this blanket and I.  But it is starting to get on my nerves a bit.

To keep myself from going out of my mind and swearing off knitting forever, I took a break from the blanket the other day and, in the course of two hours, churned out this chunky little hat.

It might not be obvious from the photo, but this is a small hat, for a small head.  The pattern is the Pointy Elf Hat from Joelle Hoverson's More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts.  It called for Hand Jive Nature's Palette Thick/Thin Bulky Merino, but after trying four different yarn stores, I decided to opt for something I could actually find in stock and used Malabrigo's Gruesa in Apple Cinnamon, which worked out just fine, thank you very much.

It's just so nice to have finished something.  That's why I got into this whole knitting business in the first place.  I enjoy the process as much as the next girl, but there's nothing like binding off the last stitch to make me feel like I'm actually doing something with my life.

I like this hat.  It's sturdy, but kind of sweet.  I also love the fact that it knits up so quickly, although I was kind of sorry when I finished it, because I'd been having such a good time along the way.  Fortunately, I've got a second skein of the Gruesa, so I can start another little elf hat whenever I want to.  I'm going to try to make myself wait until I'm done with The Blanket that Ate Seattle--I mean, "the sweet little heirloom that's bound to be passed down from one generation to the next, et cetera."

Wish me luck.