Kim Hargreaves sort of dropped off my knitting radar after she started selling her patterns only online in yarn kits, but I spied her new book, Precious, the other day and was left regretting all the beautiful designs I've been missing. I love so many of her sweaters, but I seem to be on a hat kick right now, so I'm getting my Har-groove back with her Lucky beret.

kinda looks like a giant mushroom, doesn't it?

I just love this subtle shade of Malabrigo worsted. It's called "Simply Taupe." Isn't that delightful? I bought the yarn on a trip to Seed Stitch in Salem, Mass back when wee was just a baby and had kept it stashed for a future scarf or hat. But now I'm convinced that all Malabrigo should become hats. Thing is, it just never itches my forehead like so many other wools eventually do. And its tendency to felt makes the hat even warmer. It's perfect!

What is not perfect, however, is that darned silly hang-up the Brits have about knitting everything flat and seaming it. Oh, Kim, seam a beret?! Really?! A little too precious, I think.

I found it!

I'm so happy, I can't hold the camera straight!

On my way to knitting on Sunday, I made a desperate decision to dig through the kids' winter hats & gloves basket ONE LAST TIME and, lo and behold, there was my Malabrigo beret buried at the bottom! I couldn't believe it when I spotted the little bit of light blue stuck inside a handful of red, yellow and black winter wear. I actually gasped. And only partially because of the brown sticky gunk I found on it (which you can see in the above picture and leads me to ask just what the hell else is at the bottom of the kids' winter hats & gloves basket?!). So, it needs a good washing, but first I had to close up that hole I found in it last year. The yarn in one stitch had broken, leaving a dangerous hole, which was thwarted from unraveling in all directions only by the practically felted nature of the 4 year-old Malabrigo yarn. A little duplicate stitch in a similar yarn on the inside did the trick.

seriously, that is a totally different yarn I used - hell, I coulda used it on the front, it matches so well!

And she's back! Now all I have to ask myself is, which of my two favorite hats do I want to wear?

note to self: don't do the plain rounds between the decrease rounds because otherwise your hat will be ridiculous looking and you'll run out of yarn

Because I finished my replacement Malabrigo beret last night! It fits great, now that I've worked out the changes I made (and noted them on my pattern and here for the next time I lose my favorite hat and need to make this pattern again!).

"...the hat came back, I thought she was a goner,
the hat came back, she just wouldn't stay away."

My Malabrigo beret, second version, third try. I still don't know what exactly went wrong with my first attempts to make a replacement for my lost hat. I am equally clueless about what might be so different about this third try, but, for whatever reason, I'm getting a good feeling about this one. It even feels like my old hat in my hands, on the needles. So I'm knitting away, daydreaming about Goldilocks: 'this one is just right.'

I hope it's not just a fairy tale. I don't want to make v 2.4.

'Cause this hat is getting ripped. Here's the very sad story. Wait, knit yourself a hanky first then come back....

Okay, so my favorite knitted hat of all time - my Malabrigo Le Beret has gone missing.

Loved that hat! Loved that yarn! Perfect color, perfect fit. It was the perfect hat. Well, it did have a hole in it after 4 years of wear, but I was gonna fix that, I swear. As I went to pull out the winter wear (hats, gloves, scarves, etc.) I could not find the hat anywhere. THE hat. After going through the various stages of grief - denial took a long time since I kept going back to search through the same spots over and over - I decided to move on and make a new one. I have the pattern still and I even have a skein of Malabrigo. It's not the same perfect sky blue shade that was in THE hat though. And I'd done something with the numbers in the pattern to get it to fit so perfectly, but I didn't jot that down on my pattern. Bugger.

I made several cast on attempts, found a stitch count and needle size I liked and went for it. I knitted away, telling myself that as soon as I finished this replacement hat, I'd find the old one. And then I'd have two! Apparently you can't say that sort of thing out loud and after eight inches of knitting I was punished by having the hat just look horrible and all wrong on me. I think I left out some increases. I think I knit it too tight. I think I jinxed it.

It's time to frog and try again. But first a little whine because I just want my old hat back. Waaaah and ribbit.

do you audioread while knitting?

Congratulations to Regina, who won a copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society on CD! Regina, send me an email with your info and I'll send you your audiobook.

Happy audioreading to everyone else who shared suggestions and played along!

I found this striped Mandarin Petit sweater in the stash while searching for something else entirely. In fact, this find was so exciting, I forgot what I was originally hunting down! What I found was just the first three inches of this sweater - all I had knitted before I shoved it into the stash three years ago. I instantly remembered loving this sweater pattern, pulled it out and continued knitting.

three and a half years ago

That was this sweater over three years ago, May 2006 to be exact. We had a sample of this sweater at the store that I had fallen in love with and I was planning to make it for a friend's baby-on-the-way. But then I found out I was pregnant with wee one and very excitedly replanned it for her! I must have knit an inch past the red section above, right to the point where one of the color stripes repeats, and then my pregnant self decided it couldn't deal with all those yarn balls hanging off the sweater and all those strands being carried. Or else it was the fear of the other option, weaving in all those ends, that overcame me. Either way, I abandoned it. And as wee one grew and my stash was pushed further into the back of the closet, I forgot about it.

Until now!

body to armholes complete - that wasn't too hard after all

I freaking love it! And by some miracle, it will still fit her. I had cast on for the one year size, which is rather generously sized, like many of these Scandinavian sweaters. I held it up to a sweater wee wore last winter and it was still two inches wider! So there's no need to rip anything out. Yes! The pattern even goes up to a size four, which means I can follow the numbers for the four year length while keeping the one year width. It's like it was meant to wait three years for me to finish it. If I'd finished it before, it would have been way too wide, because she's a slender girl, and too short, since she shot up like a weed between one and two years.

When I think that I pretty much started this sweater right when wee one was conceived and now she's two and half and I can see how it is so totally her, well, I'm getting a little verklempt finishing it. Sniff, sniff.