Hat update

 

Since the last time you saw this hat, I have flipped up the facing to the inside, and sewed it down, using a stretch stitch on my sewing machine.  It looks much nicer on the inside now.  

This had the effect of making the hat shorter, and it felt a little like a beanie.  I decided to add some ear flaps.  I knitted them today on the Brother bulky that Ed and I just set up a few days ago.  Makes it look like a totally different hat. 

I am finally cleaning up and organizing my studio.  It was a disaster during our move-in a year ago.  I took some photos back then. 

There were boxes everywhere.  Bins of yarn and books on the shelf, not enough shelves, so books on the floor and the table and everywhere. I had no hope of finding a pattern because all the organization in the old house was not heeded when shelving the magazines here.  It was overwhelming.  

The weaving loom is surrounded and covered with boxes of yarn.  The extra knitting machines are taking up a shelf unit that I previously used to store the bins of yarn in our old house.  

No room for a cozy spot for the circular sock knitting machine or the spinning wheels.  The yarn trees are back in the corner, away from the window, because I don't want sunlight fading the dyes.  

The motor drives for four machines were in boxes and taking up a lot of space. 

Now, it's over a year later, and FINALLY I have got all four of the motor drives up and running. 

Ed is going to install electric outlets on the wall side so I don't have to run extension cords over the floor.  We are also looking at different lighting, the current lighting is compact fluorescent and it takes a while for the bulbs to warm up enough to give off good light.  I think LED is the way to go these days.  

There is still a lot of organizing to do. I have been putting random pattern printouts I find among projects into a three-ring binder. When I clean up this table, it will be a place to work on patterns or do some hand-knitting.  The KH-930 with the garter carriage is against the table, and there is a bulky punchcard machine sitting flat on the far side. 

 I can at least see a path to my weaving loom.  I need to use up about half of the yarn I have in bins and boxes and bags and on the yarn trees.  

I feel more like knitting when I am not overwhelmed by a huge mess.  This week I made a couple of hats for my granddaughter.  I am lining all the hats with Polar Fleece now, as last year my son-in-law complained that the knitted hats let the wind through.  The cute bear hat turned out to be almost too small for her, it fits tightly, and the bicycle one, which is 12 stitches wider, fits perfectly.