Vacation wrap-up

After thirteen blissful nights off, I loathe the thought of staying up all night tonight (and tomorrow... and the next night). My attempts to avoid premature-onset bad mood have failed thusfar. On the bright side, we made an admirable start to the new year-- catching up with friends, going for snowy walks, reading aloud to each other, and working on our respective projects. My new healthy recipe for the week-- Unfussy Apple Cake from 101cookbooks-- was well-received:


It was very hearty, only mildly sweet-- next time I will add more chopped apples-- and definitely healthy... before we doused it in cream. Light cream, but still.

I'm off to a fast start on my January hat line-up. Hat #6 is finished, and I am nearly done with the striped stocking cap prototype:

My hasty progress has hit a bit of a speed bump in the form of hat #7. I knew this one was going to take longer because a) I had to teach myself double knitting and b) double knitting means, somewhat predictably, twice the number of stitches. What I didn't anticipate: having to drastically rethink my whole concept of gauge.

For reference, this is a 24" circular needle-- and the hat is approximately eight miles in diameter.

The ball band helpfully suggests a gauge of 6 stitches/inch on a size 3-4 needle... and (wait for it) I'm knitting 5 stitches/inch on a size 1. I fear I have fallen down some kind of rabbit hole.


I also spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to cast on. I kept telling myself there must be a way to adapt a tubular cast-on for double knitting. As it so often turns out, there is-- this is the Italian cast-on done in two colors, and it's fiendishly fiddly. For that reason, I'm not particularly looking forward to starting over. Additionally, the Voice of Reason-- which I do hear occasionally-- is urging me to take a nap this afternoon.

I hope to be sleeping when you (I hope!) are reading this-- tomorrow. I look forward to seeing what everyone else is up to... when I wake up!