Snip, snip, chop, chop

I decided to go ahead and chop my hair. I went to my favourite hairdresser and she did her magic.

 This is my hair a few weeks ago. Cute straight, but truth be told, I have grown to hate wearing my hair down.

I usually wore it in a high ponytail, but I have a LOT of hair. It is heavy, so wearing a high ponytail causes a lot of tugging on my scalp.

All of the tugging on my scalp makes my scalp hurt and itch.

And besides that, what the heck is the point of having long hair if you always wear it up because you hate wearing it down? And if wearing it up is uncomfortable, what's a gal to do?

Chop it off, of course.

Two interesting notes about the before & after photos. I still have a little bit of pink left! I bleached that part of my hair a couple of inches away from my scalp so that it wouldn't look stupid as my hair grew. I wanted it to look good when my hair was up, and didn't want a harsh line where the new growth was. I thought I'd lose all of the pink, but apparently not.

Also, my hair is decidedly BROWN. This is not acceptable. Last time I coloured my hair, it was a dark purple colour. I need to figure something out, because I don't want to be a brunette right now.

I am quite chuffed with this cut. It took literally five minutes to style this morning. All I did was scrunch some AG reCoil into it while it was still dripping wet, squeeze it with a microfibre chamois, and diffuse it for a couple of minutes.

A mostly non-knitting related post

I try to keep this blog all about crafting, and there's a bit of crafting talk in this post, but the reason for the post isn't really craft related. Does that make sense? I didn't think so.

Anyway. I love the patterns on Knitty. They're fantastic. I've knit several. Some of them more than once. I have several more in my queue, waiting to be knitted up. In fact, it was the Caliormetry pattern that prompted me to take up knitting again.

Yesterday I was looking at their Fall 2013 edition, and came across this sweater. Isn't it fantastic? The leaves! The cables! OMG, the colour!

I love retro styled clothing. This sweater is adorable, and screams "BOMBSHELL!" Unfortunately, in order for me to wear it, it would have to be lengthened about 4", so that it at least skims my hips. I hate how I look in cropped tops of any kind.

But the sweater is not the reason for this post. The sweater is great. I love the sweater. However, I love her hair. Yes, I am a vain creature. I am always on the lookout for the perfect haircut, which, sadly, I haven't had in some time.

I used to have extremely long hair. I could sit on it. It was my security blanket. I treated it very gently, kept it up 99% of the time, braided it at bedtime, oiled, conditioned, and hennaed it. It shone like a mirror. I bought fancy sticks and forks to wear in it, since it ate hairpins and laughed at elastics. It had soft waves, not curls. If I wore it down, I looked I should be wearing Renaissance garb. Or dancing in a forest glade.

It also made my head hurt, and I couldn't wear it down without catching it on everything in sight. It took forever to dry, and my updo never stayed put, so I had to mess with it a lot.

So in 2010, I cut it short. It was a cute angled bob, very edgy. It also required a ton of styling, so I let it grow out for about a year.

Then I cut it short again, even shorter than the first cut. It required less styling, and was a bit more "me", but it was too much of a "mum who is approaching middle age" haircut. Again, I let it grow.

Back to the haircut in the sweater photo. I have different bangs than she does, but bangs grow fast. The problem I always had before with short hair was that the cuts didn't work with my hair texture. This is the back view of the sweater, which I absolutely love.

What really got me, however, is her hair texture. I swear, I'm practically looking at the back of my own head. She has the same loose waves that I do. I know how to style hair like this.

Unfortunately, I JUST got my hair cut. Knowing myself as well as I do, I will probably obsess over this haircut until I bite the bullet and get it done. It is short, yes. I keep saying that I want to grow it out again, but I'm just not feeling the love. That's part of the reason I dyed the underside of my hair pink. And I do love the pink. However, this cut... this is pretty much the Holy Grail haircut for me. It is what I've always wanted in short hair. And with minimal styling.

And it is a damned fine sweater, too.

Baby Jester Hat

I love Woolly Wormhead's hats. She has really clever ideas. She designs very wearable hats, very cute hats, and some that are just plain wacky and off the wall. I've made a few of her designs now, and I'm always pleased with the result.

I had some leftover Knit Picks Imagination yarn that I thought would make a great baby hat. I had about 400 yards of it, which would have been enough for an adult hat, but I knew it would be totally obnoxious and I'd never wear it.

The Baby Jester Hat is a free pattern, and I just happen to know people who are having babies... so I figured why not? Imagination is fingering, and this pattern calls for worsted, so since I had enough yarn, I just held it doubled, and it was perfect.

Even Casey approves.

The pattern did not have the tassles. Those were my addition. They're awfully cute. I almost want to add little bells to it, but that would be a bit... much.

The pattern is easy to memorize, and I knit it during our road trip, on the day we went to Drumheller. I finished all but the grafting that day. The hardest part was grafting the crown. It takes forever! A year ago, I would not have attempted this hat, because I didn't have the hang of Kitchener stitch, but now that I have a few pair of socks under my proverbial belt, I'm good to go.

For the record, I don't like doing my Kitchener stitch with a tapestry needle. I find that my tension is always bad, and it feels unnatural somehow. This video is long, but it shows (more or less) how I do it. These are the instructions I used to learn the technique.

Cobbled Cowl

I gave you a sneak peek at my Cobbled Cowl yesterday, so here it is, in all it's warm, soft glory!

The yarn is Malabrigo merino worsted, and it is a single ply yarn. I love single ply yarns, because they have such a different texture than multi-ply yarns. The only downside is that they tend to pill more.

The colourway is called "nostalgia", and it is a lovely blue & green blend. I bought the yarn on a whim at Three Bags Full several months ago, not knowing what to do with it. I loved the colours and just had to have it, so it went into my stash.

When our trip to Banff came up, I decided that a cowl was just the thing for this yarn. I didn't really have enough for a hat, and I hate scarves, but knew it could get cold at night even in August... so a cowl was the answer.

I really love how this cowl turned out. The stitch pattern is nice for this particular yarn, because it breaks up any pooling and softens the acid green parts of the yarn, so they're not so obnoxious. The pattern was easy to memorize, and knit up fairly quickly. It was a little bit slow because of the stitch pattern, but I'd definitely make it again. In fact, my little guy wants me to make him one, and I'm game. Just not in Malabrigo. I love the kid, but he loses stuff...

I'll post the baby jester hat tomorrow.

Road Trip!

Sorry for the radio silence, our family went on a road trip! It was quite an adventure, and I have loads on pictures to share... but for now, I am only going to give you a peek at what it the view looks like to a knitter on a road trip!

We were on our way to Drumheller, AB... to go to the Royal Tyrell Museum. The yarn on the left became a Baby Jester Hat (which I still need to photograph, and would like to modify to a big kid version, if only one of my children would wear it). The blue and green thing on the right is my Cobbled Cowl, knit in delicious Malabrigo worsted. Again, I need to take photographs of the cowl, which I absolutely adore. In fact, my son wants one, in red. I won't use Malabrigo though, he loses things... like socks. I need to see if his dad can hunt down the lost sock, which is probably at his house.

I have a little bit of the Malabrigo yarn left, which will go into a hat that I'm designing. I'm off to buy more yarn for the hat. I need something to go with the blue/green yarn!