Hat City -- ta dah!

Hat!  Hat!  Hat!

I like the striping and I like the colors and I'm glad it's finished.  Though it's not quite done yet.  Still have to weave in all the loose ends I tucked inside before I took the picture.  Then I have to steam it a bit and get it into shape.  All the steaming may help even out some of the irregularities in knitting, which is one of the purposes of blocking (shaping into the final shape and size.)  

Final step will be to stuff it into a zip-lock and cram it into a notebook so it can be squashed by its cousins, the swatches, and sent off for 6 Master Knitters to pick over.  Being me, I've already identified some things they'll find -- the ribbing at the bottom may be inside out (explanation too long and not worth belaboring); those color transitions are sloppy; I didn't strictly follow their pattern (10 rows of each color and make sure there's contrast.)

As for the pattern, you can't count the rows using my amateur photo but I actually did 2 rows of cream in between each color change, with 8 rows of dark pink each repeat.  Last time I checked 8 + 2 = 10.  And they did say I could use other colors.

We'll see.

The hat is knit in cylinder shape until it's time to close the crown.  Here are two pix to give you an idea.

Big hole.  Big hole to let in the cold air.  Big hole that defeats
the purpose off the hat.  After several rounds of one of those
get-rid-of-stitches techniques I'm left with only 11 stitches
and a tail of yarn.

Enter the darning needle.  Big eye to accommodate yarn.
Thread the needle and weave the yarn back through each stitch
left on the needle.  Slip the needle out of the stitches and
using the thread tail like a drawstring, gather
all the stitches into a closed star of sorts.

One more swatch -- still avoiding it just because I can.  Right now I'm back to the mohair scarf and the blue shawl.  Both are close to the end so look for pictures soon.

I mentioned the quilt that is making its way to Heather Spence Designs.  One close-up -- this blog is about knitting, not quilting, but I decided to share.

Tonight we will attend the Christmas Concert by the  Choir of the West Pacific Lutheran University.  Always a wonderful musical and seasonal experience.  Finely trained and exquisitely disciplined in their delivery.  Every song, every voice, every note, reminds us that this is the season when we await the greatest gift of all.