Knitting update

Some of you may remember that I made two too-big berets last year, and that they remained too big even after deliberate shrinking. I donated them to Goodwill, and went hatless last winter.

Not this season. Isn't this cute?

I tried to take a self-portrait but couldn't get one that looked good. I ended up using a large can as a model, but the hat looks just as good on me. Well, almost.

The pattern is free, [you can get it here] and took less than two days to knit. Of course it was too big, but not so much that the shrinking process couldn't correct the fit. The only other modification I made was to tack the front part of the hat to the top of the brim.

Now I need to knit a sports car to go with it. Or a newspaper carrier bag. [There certainly should be a pattern out there for a newspaper bag, but I couldn't find one easily, so it shall remain linkless.]

As soon as I cast off the hat, I started a knitty pattern called Doddy. It's a soft ball; I'm going to bury a medicine bottle with a couple jingle bells in the middle of it before I stuff it. Because with three days left before Christmas, there's still plenty of time to make another gift! Heh. The ball is made of 12 pentagons, all linked together to become a dodecahedron. Or a ball. The designer used two colors throughout, but I'm using six colors and making each pentagon solid colored, two of each color. Five down, seven to go.

Today's the day that Mr. Shrinking Knitter and I are going to see the new film about Bob Dylan called I'm Not There. I had to be out battling Christmas shoppers yesterday afternoon, and I'm not too excited about getting on the road this weekend, but the movie is only going to be at the Grandin until Christmas Eve. If we want to go, today's the day.

I wonder if I should call this blog the Too-Big Knitter. Because that's how everything I knit seems to turn out. And, of course, it would also describe the general state of my body. Thanks for your comments and compliments recently on the too-big sweater. I'd probably wear pink whether it looked good or not, so I'm glad you think pink is a good color for me.

To combat the too-big-body issue I used the treadmill yesterday for 50 minutes. I'm not yet able to run on the treadmill without gasping for breath after half a lap. The difference between indoor and outdoor running – just speaking for myself here – is huge. I'm about ready to abandon the 20-week marathon training plan and start fresh in January with the 16-week one. There's so much going on this week and next that I can't really say I've been sticking with any kind of plan, be it running or food. And, of course, there's still this useless appendage I call my left arm.

Back on Monday ...