yarnalong: much-too-big hat & a bird book

…Joining Ginny’s YarnAlong, sharing what I’m knitting and reading…
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…Knitting…
In Progress: I cast on a pair of socks for Jeff. Mackenzie suggested this sock pattern for me. There are quite a few things that I think are awesome about this sock pattern already. For one it has sizes for the whole family, plus in three different weights of yarn, and you can customize the pattern- choosing which kind of ribbing if any and adding more than one color if you like. I’m grateful she led me to this pattern and I have a feeling it will get a lot of use. {Posted on Ravelry here.}

Finished: I finished that green hat for Bracken. {Posted on Ravelry here.} It turned out adorable, but it’s much too big for him. It will take some more growing before it fits him. I took some pictures of him wearing it anyway (below.)

…Reading…

My mom gave me this bird book when I moved to Oregon, so I could learn the birds here. I think my grandma gave it to her and she had more than one copy, so she passed one along to me. So many times I’ve seen a bird in our yard and wondered what it was. Now we are keeping this book handy and Jeff and I are flipping through it (gently, because the pages are starting to fall out), trying to identify the birds we don’t yet know, that visit here. Lately we’ve been having a gorgeous bird visit our yard. It’s body is bright yellow and it has black wings and a black tail. It has some red around the throat. Jeff thinks it’s a Western Tanager. The picture shows the whole head being red though, so I’m not quite so sure.

Ready to see Bracken in his much-too-big hat?

Oh yeah, one other picture first. I included this picture to remind myself of something. I had never blocked a knitting project before. I looked it up in this book while Bracken was napping. I was anxious to finish the hat during Bracken’s nap, so I skipped the blocking part and stitched up the back and added the button. But the blocking is important with this project. I blocked it a little afterwards, but it would have been much easier if I would have done it before. (Note to self here next time I knit this pattern.)