Hooking

I haven't been spending very much time knitting and crocheting due to using my rare free time for other things and being less inspired to do it in warmer weather. We're enjoying some wonderful unseasonably warm weather right now, but it will be cold and time for hats and scarves soon!

I learned to crochet when I was young, and I've relearned a few times over the years. It always comes back to me, but I need some guidance. For the longest time, i didn't know what dc and sc and whatnot meant and so couldn't take advantage of the patterns that are out there. Thanks to Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker I have a fun reference that teaches and reteaches what I need and helps with all those pattern abbreviations.

I participate in my local Stitch N Bitch group when time allows, which isn't often these days. It's a wonderful group of creative, talented women who inspire me to do so much more with yarn. Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'N Bitch books are a great source of information, inspiration, and patterns. I have a knitting one as well as the crochet one.

I started a hat for Gator maybe a month ago and it's still sitting on my needles, a few inches into the project. I was so excited to find some yarn I loved and got to work on a pattern of my own design that I hope will live up to my expectations. I just need to sit down and finish it! Knitting children's hats is relatively fast and relaxing for me.

Next up will be tackling crochet again. I have some adorable hat patterns from The Inner Hooker that I'm looking forward to making. First up is the owl hat. Gator has such a big head that he and Violet should be able to wear the same size. I'm planning on making my first one gender-neutral and hopefully one of them will be able to wear it. Especially since I'm not sure what my crochet gauge is like and I'm not planning on swatching. It's wonderful when hats can stretch and there are two little heads in the house to put hats on.