Football'd

Well, it was turning out to be a good weekend... until I settled in for some Sunday afternoon football. My dear Colts lost to the... I can't even type it without wincing... Cleveland Browns. That the BENGALS just beat, for heaven's sake. I mean, I love Ohio. I really do, but ouch. OH-IO = OU-CH.

Simultaneously, I was treated to watching the Bears weak Offensive line blow chance after chance in New Orleans. It was not a proud day for the Midwest, you know?

But some knitting finally happened this week, so there's always a silver lining! The theme for last week and this week is "experimentation".

Up first, I tried to take a fingerless mitt pattern and turn it into mittens.

The original:

The DoogMod version:

So, it looks... ok? I guess? But I have some problems with it. One: I wimped out on the thumb. I was going to continue the pattern up the thumb until the about the thumbnail, but it was getting too tedious, so I just went for solid blue. Two: the mitts are supposed to fit snugly, so the mitten feels pretty constricting. I'm not sure my mom would love wearing these, no matter how much Thought I put into them. Third: Doesn't it just kind of look like a sock I jammed a thumb into? Maybe I should keep it simple and use an *actual* mitten pattern. Crazy thought, I know.

My next trick project seems to be going a bit smoother. I'm attempting to reverse engineer a hat that I saw on the website Nerd Boyfriend. The hat in question is as follows:

This baby costs 39 British Pounds. I'm sure shipping would tip that price well into Super Fancy territory. Meanwhile, I have some grey sock yarn lying around and leftover yellow sport-weight yarn from another project. I'm totally going to reverse engineer this puppy for PENNIES on the pound. (Is that a saying?)

So, here's the start. A few things I decided on from the beginning:

• The original is knitted flat and then seamed up the back. I want to go for seamless construction (I hate sewing up knitting - I think I'm allergic to the metal in my tapestry needles #firstworldproblems)
• The bottom band seems to be knitted separately and then attached after the hat is seamed together. Again, I'm going for all one piece. 
• The original looks like it's made with fairly course wool. The yarn I had on hand is 70% wool and 30% silk, because I'm CLASSY AS HELL. It creates a smooth fabric, but it's pretty lightweight. I hope it's warm enough for a Chicago winter!

 In other news, I have a shipment of yarn coming that I'm extremely excited about. I know I SAID I was trying to use up the yarn I already have... but I swear, half of it's for gifts. Promise. Don't look at me like that.