Sneaky Little Thief

It seems we have a sneaky little yarn thief living in our house! I recently splurged and ordered a bunch of stuff for new projects from Knitpicks and Webs. I stashed my new goodies away in a zippered grocery bag in the living room for easy access. When I came home one night, I found the puppy playing with a skein of my new yarn! Ahhhhhhh!!!!! It was Blue Sky Alpaca's Suri Merino which I was planning to make this kitty hat for my son with.
The puppy had somehow jumped over the pet gate, nuzzled his snout into the partially unzipped bag, snatched the skein, and jumped back over the gate... Well, the yarn didn't look completely destroyed, just a tangled mess. I was very angry so I put the little puppy in his crate for a "time out", only to discover the OTHER skein of Suri Merino stashed away in his crate! Luckily this one was still intact. I will definately have to keep an eye on this little guy in the future!

One of the projects I completed with my new yarn is this chunky hat I knit for my Mom with Knitpicks Swish Bulky. My Mom had recently confessed to me that she had stolen the hat I had knit for my sister several years ago and hides it every time she comes to visit. Since Mom's birthday was coming up, I decided she needed a hat of her own. I made this one very similar, with different yarn and a different somewhat different colors. I took my inspiration from the book Morehouse Farm Merino Knits... it is similar to the"Hats with Stripes" pattern which has a contrasting color in purl ridges for stripes. I played around with the color sequence and I made this hat wayyyy bigger. I really like the Swish Bulky. I made the last hat with Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky which was quite itchy on me... The swish does not seem itchy at all (although I only wore the hat for a total of five minutes to test it out.) The whole hat was knit in an evening and I tidied up the loose ends the next morning. Quick project!!! Here is a pic...
Right now I am working on a top-down seemless raglan sweater for my son, and a pair of fingerless mitts. I have put the Bat Sweater on hold because I am afraid the sleeves will be too short. Before seaming it and being disappointed I think I will baste the seams and try it on to get an accurate fitting. I allready added about 1 1/2 inches to the length of the body and the sleeves but I still think its too short. When flipping through the book I noticed that the many of the sweaters modeled seemed to have shorter sleeves than I like for my personal taste. All the knitting is done, anyway, I just have the enormous task of weaving in all the loose ends on the intarsia portion. I seam to always put off the finishing on my projects....