Flower time

Just any minute I'll have some flowers made for my plain hats.

Keeping up with all the new television shows has required logic, reasoning, careful DVR programming, and dedication. Crochet has not been possible during this time.

But I found this book: Crochet Embellishment by Jean Leinhauser

It has 32 different flowers as well as leaves, borders, shapes and...this is very important..."A Refresher Course" in the back. As my crochet skills are spotty, this will come in handy.

Look out, world. I'm grabbing my crochet hook.

Also, that book in the background is an accident. But it's a good one. It has to go back to the library today and I'm thiiiiiiss close to finishing it.

One successful knit project

I'm an optimist...on this trip with non-crafters, I still believed I'd be knitting. In fact, I packed more yarn than I did underwear. I'm pretty sure I did. You just never know what you'll want to knit so you have to be prepared.

I finished a hat. I call it "Knit on a Church Bus" because it has some issues but I'm hoping the atmosphere will bring it a special blessing anyway. As I am moving my office (again), I'm going to make my first contribution to the hat collection. Those hats are heavy (not really) so I won't move them with me (probably). I believe my current count is 15. And I've moved on to another pair of socks. With cables. What in the world am I thinking?

Hat 14

No need to worry about my unlucky number o'hats. I'm sure that you were. This is Hat #14. I don't love it but I did get to do something I never did before...put on the brim. Mary did a hat check to see where we are 16 weeks out from the day, and the numbers are looking pretty good! And I still have time to make progress. Thank goodness.

And another hat

As I believe this makes number 13, I am currently crocheting like the wind to come up with number 14. I'm not superstitious (OK, yes, I am), but really, isn't one more hat just a good thing?

My hat collection

Yesterday I visited the cubby of a person who is dedicated-ly crocheting hats for Knitting for Noggins for Arkansas Children's Hospital. The deadline is sometime in October, and before then, we'll start a big drive to collect and count the hats. This person is not a "professional" (which means that she doesn't work for me, doesn't write instructions). She has a large collection building. There really ought to be 2 levels of competition...the K&C writers...and everybody else. Nobody can compete with them. Really. They are speed demons with hooks or needles...and usually carry on complete conversations with you. I have to poke my tongue out to crochet. No conversation allowed.

So...then I started to wonder about my own collection and how many I have. I can't remember how many I did last year. Maybe 7 or 8? And in 4 weeks that's not too shabby. For this year, I was going to have one hat for every month. So, how many do I have now? 12.

I actually met a goal. I can't believe it. I like goals, I set goals, but usually they're too lofty (OK, really I miss diet goals but who doesn't? I meet goals like "buy more shoes").

Obviously my goal was too low. 3 months left...maybe I could do 12 more? No, 6 more. That's better.

The little purple hat...I named it "Gauge" so that it might be a lesson on why gauge matters. That's an adult pattern, worked in a different yarn with a different hook (because that's all I had at midnight whatever night this bright idea kicked in).

Number 13 is on the hook (do crocheters say that?) right now. Acutally, on the couch AND hook.

The Knitting for Noggins 2007 round up

Yesterday we delivered the hats to Arkansas Children's Hospital that we've been working on for the past month. I have personally twisted arms on everyone in my influence to get them knitting or crocheting a hat for the cause. Since I don't have that much influence, it's good that there were plenty of yarn fans to contribute. The final numbers:
Leisure Arts employees/friends make 219 hats total. Warm Up America donates 100 hats. Our total delivery: 319. Not too shabby. As of yesterday, people in 22 states had donated hats. And this morning the total is at 19, 794.

We didn't win for the most donated. We were short about 700 hats. That's a lot of hats. So now I have to begin using my influence for next year. Anybody want to make a hat? Have I got an easy pattern for you...

Congratulations to Joan Beebe who won a prize for one of her teeny tiny little hats. Here she is doing a good deed for a fellow knitter by sewing up a hat to turn in. It's a good team. Designer Susan Anderson was there and in a warm-fuzzy rush I had to buy her new book, Itty Bitty Nursery. She's got some way cute hats. I should probably just go ahead and get started for next year. Maybe I can double my input to 12 if I start now.

New Knitters

Here's another shot of what peer pressure looks like...2 new knitters! Like water dripping on rocks, we wore down these 2 and then threw in a great charity to push them over the edge. Each made a hat (currently being modeled by the Magic 8 Ball and a precious Diet Coke). And now both have multiple projects going...the sign of a true crafter, right? I call that success. Lora has mastered k2, p2 ribbing (and she knows what I mean) and Rhonda has made her first garter stitch hat (although she might not know exactly that she has). Next up, she'll learn to P-U-R-L.

So far, the Knitting for Noggins looks like a big success. The goal was 100 when we started. An optimistic soul built the cap-o-meter to blow at 130 caps...and early numbers seem to indicate that we might even pass that goal! Add to that the 100 caps passed on from Caps to the Capital/Warm up America, and the Leisure Arts group will deliver 200+ hats. Great work!

Peer Pressure complete

So this is the finished Peer Pressure hat and his brother, One to Grow On. Since the goal was 4 and I did 6, I'm done. DONE. No more hats for me. Back to the other projects I have going...sweater time. Pirate Pete is in the picture to add interest. He's not going to donated...although technically he IS wearing a cap...and that would increase my count...nah. 6 is good enough.

What Peer Pressure Looks Like

I made 4 hats already, people! That was the goal. And as usual, I worked diligently to come in way before the deadline. So now I get to make another hat. The professionals, who can make a cabled hat in an afternoon...an AFTERNOON, say to me, "Well you have 2 more weeks. You can make more hats."

The feeling just came back in my left hand before lunch yesterday. So I decided that was reason to celebrate. By making another hat. This time I'm knitting in the round and I'm going to attempt double-pointed needles. At least I'm learning something new. And some little child will have a hat too. I don't really need that left hand anyway.

The last hat, I think

My goal was 4 hats. I now have 4 completed hats. Of course, the deadline is also 10 days away. And every time someone around here brings in a new hat, I think I could probably do that one too. Unless it's crochet. I can't do that. Yet. And I still have a collection of yarns suitable for hat-making. Maybe just one more...knitted in the round maybe...maybe with some stripes...
I have to wait until the feeling returns to my left hand. It's hard to hold the needle after my hand goes numb. The voice of experience...

Panda Bear Again

This is my third finished hat, Panda style. It comes from a Lion Brand free pattern. I modified it because I have an aversion to google eyes in general and for baby items in particular. One more and I'm done...I think. And I think we may have successfully infected a couple of new knitters as well. Good work, team!

A Hat update

I managed to wrangle some models out of the Knit & Crochet area to show off the hats that are being whipped up for Arkansas Childrens Hospital and Knitting for Noggins. And these highly compensated, totally professional models are Mary, Sarah, and Joan. Mary is showing her non-Raspberry Beret (come on, everybody sing...Raaa-spberry Ber-et, the kind you find in a second-hand store....Raaa-spberry Ber-et), Sarah is wearing my one adult hat, and then they're all holding baby hats made by Sarah or Joan.
Title of Picture 1: CHEESE!
Title of Picture 2: She's touching me! Hey, she's touching me!
Title of Picture 3: #!@$& (Mary looks like she's disgusted (and might be making an obscene gesture disguised by innnocent baby hats), Sarah looks both disgusted AND afraid, Joan...she just looks like she's happy. Hi, Joan!). You'd be surprised at how often I get these looks in real life.

Noggins Lunch Bunch

Tuesday was a VERY BUSY DAY. Designer Pat Sloan was here teaching a class/getting photography done for her upcoming books. Thank goodness I had good hands to leave her in because I had a few fires to stamp out. That means no class for me. Pouting....
But at lunch time, the Knit & Crochet ladies got together to have a little clinic for anyone who might need a little help knitting or crocheting hats for Arkansas Children's Hospital Knitting for Noggins. And we had so much fun! Here are the knitters and crocheters (with a stray former employee, current designer Kay thrown in for good measure, HI, Kay!) all hard at work. Until I'm around these ladies, I think I'm some kind of hot stuff knitter. Then I watch them churn out a hat in an unholy amount of time. And they're TALKING while they knit. I can't do that. I. MUST. FOCUS. while I knit or catastrophe strikes. And on the other end...my end now that I think about it...were the learners. Lola Lora who's been dragged into the knitting is working through K2, P2 ribbing (knit two, purl two) for her hat. And Rock Star Rhonda (as she will forever be known) is just learning. Like in this photo she just started...first knit stitches ever. Finally...peer pressure uses its powers for good instead of evil. Next I'm going to post photos of my completed hats. Both of them. I'm not sure I'm going to make the goal of 4 at the rate that I'm going. Still, it's too soon to give up.