Knotty but Nice

So sorry for the late post this week.  I actually went through with dying my hair red.  We did a foil, rather than dying the whole head, so it's subtle, but a lovely dark red/brown color.  I'm not sure that I love it yet (one reason why there are no pictures--the other is that the lighting in our apartment is terrible and my face ends up looking redder than my hair), but I'm sure it'll grow on me.

And to distract you from the lack of hair photo, here's a cute kitty picture!!

Awwwwwwww!
Kitty update: Arty is getting so big!  He's about 5lbs now (was 2 when we brought him home) and he can now jump and reach things he couldn't when he was tiny--uh oh.  We think the ringworm has largely been eradicated from our house.  Arty still has a little bit on his back, but it's almost all gone, hurray!

And now Knitting:

Welcome to yet another edition of stash-busting.  I almost never use all of the recommended yardage for my big projects and here are a couple of results of the leftovers:

Even after the Gretel Beret, I still had a fair amount of the Elann pink alpaca and after scouring Knitty for a while, I found this little number.  The pattern is Knotty but Nice and was written by Natalie Larson.  It was originally written for a man, but what self-respecting man wants to wear a hat made of pink alpaca?  None that I know.  So I sized it down by using smaller needles.  It fits my medium-ish sized head.

The pattern itself was very straightforward.  The cabling looks like it was hard, but so long as you're paying attention, it looks a lot more demanding than it really was.  An excellent choice for a quick Christmas gift.

For some reason 2010 has been a year of pink for me.  Lots of pink sweaters and therefore lots of leftover pink yarn. This is the very last of the angora from the Arisaig sweater.  It was sooo soft, it really had to be used to comfort someone's hands and so I chose Knotty by Julia Mueller.  Funny that both designers came to the same name and same design independently--I wonder if one was inspired by the other.  In any event, the two projects (even if they're not EXACTLY the same pink) will make a nice set for someone for Christmas--I can think of a lovely budding photographer would might appreciate some fingerless gloves...

As you can obviously tell, I didn't have quite enough yarn to make these full gloves, much to my chagrin.  I don't usually like fingerless gloves/mitts, but I didn't have the heart to tear out such a pretty cabled pattern.  Plus they'll be great for photography practice!
I will definitely make these again--and finish the pattern next time!!

Next week I'll have to post twice to make up for lateness this week.
Next time: Finished Goddess Top

Cheers,

-Allie