Knitting Both Ends

I’ve been working on another Musselburgh hat off and on these past few months. My hope is to use up as much of the 100g skein of yarn with very little left over. 

One way I could have done that was weigh the skein before starting then weigh it again once the increases were completed. The difference would have told me how much yarn to leave at the end to complete the decreases. Problem is, I didn’t do either. 

I could also just knit the tube until I guess how much yarn I need to complete the decreases. Then it occurred to me that I could start a second crown starting with the other end of the skein and knit until the yarn is almost used up, then graft it to the tube knit from the other end. 

The outside of the ball of yarn goes to the ‘tube’ and the inside of the ball goes to the second crown.

The result will be a nice, long tube closed at both ends. When the one end is pushed into the other the brim will be nice and deep, creating 4 layers for over the ears. The only downside I see is the striping pattern will probably be interrupted where the twe sections are grafted. I can live with that.

Today, Jeanette had us over for some stitching. The timing was great because I was just starting to miss my stitching peeps as I had missed her stitching day a week and a half ago due to a prior appointment. We cut the afternoon’s stitching short because the anticipated snowfall had started and we wanted to head for home before driving conditions got too challenging. 

When I got home, I cleared the chunks of icy snow at the bottom of my driveway that were left a couple of days ago. One real cold snap could have turned them into almost concrete-like obstacles. I’m not sure we got enough snow for the snow clearing company to come and do their magic. If they don’t come, I’ll have to deal with it myself. By then the snow will be very heavy and wet. 

While at Jeanette’s I continued to work on the cardinal piece.

Jeanette is planning to have a ‘Finishing February’. I should do something like that too. Not sure how far I’ll get with that concept, though.

- I watched the new Bridget Jones movie ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ on Amazon Prime. Surprisingly a bit of a tear-jerker but I recommend it.