Looking after number one.....

I absolutely love this time of year.  The thought of summer keeps me going through the cold, wet, dark months.  But this week I remembered those months and my mind turned to hats.  I don't suit hats but there are maybe a few days each winter when I would really benefit from wearing one.  When the cold is so perishing that everyone brings out their woolly hats I feel tempted to join the club.

I found a hat pattern on Ravelry and liked it enough to buy it.  That is really rare for me.  The pattern is called Awesome Hat.  It is simple yet clever.  The brim turns up neatly and the crown decreases fit well and look tidy.  My blue and pink hat is just as the pattern was written.  The black sparkly hat is slightly amended as I did stocking stitch instead of rib for the main part.  Both yarns came as bargain buys, the black from a charity shop and the blue from Ebay.

I knitted the biggest size.  I have shortish hair and like to push it all into a hat.  I also like to pull a hat down to keep my ears warm.  These hats will match my winter jackets and I might actually wear them!!

That's me sorted for the winter.  Now I can get back to enjoying the summer and making my charity knits.

Just what I needed.....

Here's a photo of my latest bargain wool purchase.

This lot came from Ebay and cost about £13 including postage.  That definitely meets my criteria of never paying more than £1 per 100g of wool.  The wool ranges from 2 ply to Aran and will be perfect for hats and blankets for my favourite charities.  The photo doesn't show the colour of the coned yarn very well, but it is called "Meadow" and is a lovely mix of soft green and dark beige.  This is 4 ply so it will mix nicely with some cream 4 ply that I already have waiting to be turned into a small blanket.

I've noticed that wool without labels usually costs less than banded wool.  But the missing labels are not a problem for me ever since I learned the "wraps per inch" method of determining the weight of a yarn.  For more information about this see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarn_weight

I was like a child on Christmas morning when the postman delivered the parcel.  You hope for the best when you buy wool online.  This time I was pleasantly surprised at the good quality.  I am a bit of a cleanliness freak so I put it out in the back garden for a few hours just to freshen it up.  Luckily the weather was dry.  But it was so cold I started to wonder what frozen wool would look like.

It is now safely back indoors and packed away with the rest of my wool.  I can't pretend I was short of wool before I bought this lot.  But I was short of Aran and my double knitting wool had dwindled down to pastels only.  So this was a good buy.  But I really must stop buying wool for the next few months.....unless I see another really irresistible bargain.