New handknits

I first saw this hat over at Leslie's (and she's knitted it a few more times!), and then at Erin's, and then I decided that I needed to knit it up right away.

It was fast and mostly easy. Casting on at the crown with one stitch on each of the four double-point needles was a bit fiddly. And I had never used a crochet hook for anything besides picking up a dropped stitch here or there, so the half-double crochet around the edge was my very first crochet attempt. I have no idea if I did it backwards or not.

But other than the slightly confusing crown and the crochet edging, it was really easy, and I knit it in probably about four hours after casting on yesterday afternoon.

The pattern is Thorpe by Kirsten Kapur, whose blog I had never seen before, but I am really loving it now! The yarn is Manos del Uruguay in Mulled Wine (#118) for the hat and Pink (#01) for the contrast edging. Elisabeth's favorite color, "prune pink", can best be described as the exact purple-pink color of this hat, so she was pretty excited about it. The needles were size 8 bamboo needles and a size I crochet hook.

Next, a new hat for James, and a sweater (and maybe a new hat, too) for Daddy, and a sweater for Mama ... Knitting never sounded so good!