I’ve got my imaginary friend

Pattern: 8-Trick Pocket Hat by TECHKnitter
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK (100% superwash merino wool), colorways Peach Cream, Terra Cotta, Hollyberry, Frost, and Dusk
Needles: U.S. 5 Harmony Options 32″ circular, U.S. 3 Nickel Options 32″ circular (at top)

The garden gnome is an elusive creature. About the only way you can lure her out of the shade on a hot summer day is to offer her a new hat.

I’ve had this knit-along pattern — intended to teach several new techniques — in my queue since early in the year. When I finished off all my heavier-weight, bigger-needle knits last week, and found myself blearily peering at sock yarn deep into the shadowy night, I knew it was time to cast on something a bit chunkier.

Did I rock the new techniques? Well, to be honest, knowing that I was planning to three of these babies made me sloppy. I didn’t try to do everything perfectly the first time out — I treated hat #1 as a learning opportunity. Here’s the verdict:

Jogless join-in-the-round: Crummy. I started my usual long-tail cast-on before noticing that there was a new trick to try here, so I really didn’t do this one at all. (However, I remedied my omission when starting hat #2 just an hour ago.)

Reverse stockingette tubular knit-on hem: Awesome. Well, as far as the tubular knit-together part went. Talk about a cool trick — making a hem with no sewing! Just knit the bottom edge together with the live stitches, and off you go. But I twisted my join-in-the-round … or one of the early rows … or something, so I had an ugly patch of stretched yarn and jaggy edge right at the start. Again, knowing it was just practice, I blithely let it go.

Jogless back-join color change: Improving. I didn’t pay close enough attention the first couple of times. I read over the instructions, figured I’d gotten the gist, and boldly gave it a go.

Hm, still a jog, not right. I also didn’t “travel” the color changes to the left as I went … again because I didn’t bother to read that part carefully. By stripe #3 I’d gone back to see what I missed (slipping stitches in rounds 1 and 2), and tried it the correct way:

Still not sure it’s exactly as intended, but definitely closer — after a blocking the comma-dip-down at the change may be less visible.

Flat top for a ribbed hat: Well, given how pointy this hat is, I’m not sure it makes much difference. But I did pretty well at my Kitchenering at the end. This next time I’m making the watch cap size, so the flatness will be more noticeable. As cute as my gnome hat turned out, Noel probably does not want a hat with a “reservoir tip,” as he put it.

It was a crafty weekend all around at our house; the oppressive heat made it inadvisable to do anything other than stay inside. So I busted out these fuse-beading kits I’d gotten on clearance at Hobby Lobby last weekend and let the kids go to town. You put the tiny beads in pattern on a pegboard, then fuse them together with a hot iron to make a solid object.

Cady Gray made an owl.

Archer was proud of his caterpillar.

Another successful sibling bonding activity!