Hat!

Knitty's Dead or Alive Fish Hat is adorable.  I love it.  I wanted to knit it for someone, and Lee and I both agreed that his father would be the perfect recipient.  If he really likes it, I can make the matching scarf next year!

 

Pattern: Dead or Alive Fish Hat (Rav)

Yarn: Patons Classic Wool, Teal, Royal Purple, and Orange.

Needles: US7/4.5mm
Timeframe: November 24 - December 15, 2010.
Mods: Just one big one.  I picked up the wraps, did the colors how I wanted, and knit the tail as one piece rather than two with seaming.  Check out my Ravelry project for more technical details.

Problems: None.

 I love the eyes on the fish hat - they're so adorable and came out so well!  I am typically very bad at free-form art, though I'm obviously improving on that, as you can see from the perfectly spaced, perfect "X" within a perfect circle of the eyes here, and as you'll see with my Nuno felting post.  I am so, so proud of how well these came out.  I am in no way an artist, not artistic at all, and mostly drawn to not the art but the utility and complexity of knitting and having form follow function rather than having the design be the main goal.  Socks with an interesting construction or pattern that happen to look totally awesome as they warm feet?  Perfect!  A shawl to keep me warm in the winter with an intricate pattern?  Sign me up!  Freeform knitting or crochet?  Not so much.  Painting (other than paint-by-numbers) or embroidery, especially freehanded?  Nope, can't do it!  If you'd asked me a few months ago, I'd've put needle felting and Nuno felting into the can't do it without explicit instructions and a pattern pile, but it seems as though one can, in fact, learn such skills.  Pretty rockin' if you ask me.

It's amazing to me how many different projects I constantly have going on all at once.  I don't just mean the WIP count, where half of them don't get touched, I mean how many projects I work on at the same time.  I started the Christmas Socks on the same day that I started this hat, and blocked them on the same day too, and neither were sitting around waiting for blocking for too long.  I also knit at least one baby bib in that timeframe.  The only reason this one isn't finished on the same day is because it had the extra embellishments of the eyes to deal with.  I knit the first Blue Sock, then knit almost the entire pair of One Sock since they were going quickly (until I lost a needle), as well as most of the Husband Hat before heading back to the Blue Sock.  I know that this is how I work best in every aspect of life, bouncing from one thing to another and then finishing everything all at once at the same time, but it feels less fulfilling since all the successes come as one major success rather than small victories spaced around.  Makes me almost want to start being a bit more project monogamous.

That's probably never going to happen though.