It’s a real simple beanie made from far less than one skein of KnitPicks Chroma Worsted in the Galapagos colorway. Check out how much yarn I had left after knitting this bad boy:

I’d say I used two-thirds to three-quarters of the skein (I don’t have my digital scale with me, otherwise I’d find out for sure). That’s a $10 hat, people! That’s what I call a good deal.

You know what else is a good deal? I’m giving away this pattern for free! Check out its page on Ravelry for more information or just click here to download the pattern directly (PDF, about 2.1 MB).

I got hacked. A bunch of times. I think it was my web-host’s fault, but it was a huge pain. I work as a web developer, so I knew how to fix the problems, but that last thing I want to do in my personal time is deal with corrupt MySQL databases.

So I wasn’t posting for a while to avoid making changes. If my blog got hacked again, at least I could just revert to the most recent backup and not worry about losing posts. But now I think the problem has stabilized (please, gods of the internet, focus on more hack-worthy sites), and I think it’s safe to dip my toe back into blogging.

But what to blog about? The only knitting I have to report is the successful completion of my mom’s Noro Iro sweater:

I made it for Christmas and she loved it!

Aaaaaand… that’s all folks! More news will come as it’s fit to print. Oh, and happy 2012!

Noro Iro. So beautiful. That is all.

It’s got pockets! And a hood!

(For some reason I thought staring into the mid-day sun was a good idea for that last picture.)

Unfortunately, it’s only about 15,000 stitches instead of the 50,000 required by NaKniSweMo, so this is more like an early Christmas present I’m gifting to myself. But aren’t those the best kind, anyway?

More pictures and the pattern to come!

This was last year’s cardigan:

I liked it well enough (I still wear it all the time), but as far as design went I knew I wanted to revise it before publishing the pattern. First, the sleeves were too poofy and bulky, and I wanted to lengthen the body a tad and make the shaping a bit more flattering — probably with some negative ease. I thought this year’s NaKniSweMo would be the perfect time to revisit the pattern.

Alas. I went to my LYS and couldn’t find any color combinations I liked, or any dk-weight yarn I liked at all, for that matter. I did find some Tahki Montana that looked enticing, so I bought 10 skeins in 2 colors and brought it home:

I decided though it wouldn’t be anywhere close to 50,000 stitches, I’d design a NaKniSweMo striped raglan jacket. My added challenge would be to finish the pattern by the end of the month.

And then I discovered that the green color of the yarn has been discontinued by Tahki! BLERG! I can’t design a sweater with a discontinued yarn… le sigh. So maybe I’ll be making 2 versions of this one after all — next time with some legit yarn.

But enough about me. What are you all making for NaKniSweMo?

I’m making another giganto-blanket this week. This time I thought it’d be fun to wind all the wool up into one huge ball instead of a few smaller ones. I think it’s really exciting.

Molly’s a little skeptical.

Have questions about this blanket? Check out the FAQ!

Not much, apparently.

I just realized I hadn’t blogged for a while, and I thought it had been a couple weeks or maybe a month since my last post. Well, it turns out it’s been nearly two months and my last post was pretty half-assed, anyway.

The fall is always so ridiculously hectic for me. It’s the busiest time of year at my day job, which should be enough to keep me from blogging. But on top of the crazy work hours, I scheduled in a million other things. Here’s a little rundown, in no particular order:

-I visited Portland, Oregon and got a little Hipstamatic-happy in the rose garden:

-My cousins from Hungary came to visit. It was great to hang out, but you know how houseguests can disrupt your normal workflow. And by “disrupt” I mean “I wanted to go out to dinner and drink beer and ignore all my obligations and use them as an excuse to do nothing productive.” It worked out really well. If you speak Hungarian (or use the Google translate feature) you can check out their blog from the trip. Olivia took a bunch of great pictures, including some glamour shots of Magnus and Molly. Here’s one I borrowed:

-I attended Vogue Knitting Live in Los Angeles. It was just too convenient to have a knitting conference in my own city. I couldn’t resist. I took a “Photography for Knitters” class from the awesome Amy Swenson and “Designing and Knitting Men’s Wear” from the über-talented Josh Bennett. I also had my first real-world sighting of one of my designs!

This is the Geek Chic vest from Picture Perfect Knits. Too bad the picture came out so blurry!

-I knit another giganto-blanket. Someone was actually paying me to make them one this time, so I paid extra special attention. Here are a few pictures of it in progress:

If you’re interested in buying a completed giganto-blanket for yourself, you can check out my etsy listing here. And of course, the pattern is always available online.

-I got to witness my good friends Crystal and Kevin get married. The wedding was beautiful, and how awesome is this photo?

Photo copyright © 2011 JennKL Photography – www.JennKL.com – Jennifer@JennKL.com – 310-502-1555 — Check out the photographer’s blog for more great photos from the wedding.

-I helped my boyfriend shoot a short film in our apartment over the past weekend. My mom and stepdad were visiting town at the same time. There was a film crew in my living room or bedroom for most of the day Saturday and Sunday and both evenings I went out to dinner with the parents. This was fun, but as you can imagine I didn’t get much done all weekend.

-Oh yeah, and my most recent article was published in Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts 2011. It’s a profile of Susan B. Anderson, who I finally got to meet in person at Vogue Knitting Live. She’s really such a nice person, and her designs are so cute! Check out her little dog:

Grab a copy of the magazine for this pattern and two others from Susan, and, you know, a little writing by yours truly.

Whew! What a crazy couple of months! I’m grateful for my busy life, but I could use a little calm in the coming weeks. Here’s hoping the universe gets the message!

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Have questions about the giganto-blanket? Check out the FAQ!