Solitaire Beret

As I'm sure you guessed, my mystery item was a hat. I mean, if it fit in a tub of water that small it had to be either a hat or cowl, right?

So I don't think I ever mentioned it but last week I finally acquired the book Weekend Hats by Cecily Glowik Macdonald and Melissa Labarre. I usually don't buy books that only have patterns inside, (I like technique and design books better) but since hats are quick and easy and there's a certain holiday coming up, I thought I might make an exception.

My favorite hats in the book are as follows:
1) Solitaire Beret (the one in this post)
2) Flyer Cap
3) Glashutte Hat
4) Leaves Long Beanie
5) Wanderer Cap

I couldn't resist the urge to cast on a new hat and, since I had just finished my son's sweater, I picked out my tippy top favorite and headed to the stash bin. And... well, Ok I admit it I found NO YARN AT ALL (in spite of the fact that I had to look through 4 bins of yarn in order to determine this) and ended up heading out to buy a skein. I had wanted a bright color but ended up with some (you guessed it) Paton's Classic Wool in "Plum Heather."

220 yards and I sat down, cast on and.... knit a freaking hat. Or, rather, I purled a freaking hat- not a whole ton of actual knitting in this pattern. Serious. I sat down and worked on it and worked on it and ignored everything else for several hours. I got up only to use the restroom, get some stitch markers and a post-it when I got to the cable, and to get my dpns when it was time to start shaping. 0_o
I think I was suffering knitting withdrawals.

I'm planning on knitting the Wanderer Cap next. ;)

FO Friday: Sweater for the Little Guy

Yarn: Paton's Classic Wool (Less than 2 skeins for a size 4T sweater)
Needles: Size 4
Pattern: Bottom-up Raglan, using Elizabeth's Percentage System

After knitting, I went to the store and bought a sheet each of about 9 colors of felt. When I got home with them, I asked him to pick out which one he wanted his T-rex to be.

I was expecting him to pick red, but the understated olive green is actually a much better choice. A button for the eye adds just a bit of dimension.

Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a little boy's sweater when he's busy trying to play in the backyard in his new sweater?

It's pretty hard.

But at least you can tell this little sweater's going to get a lot of wear.

I blame the dinosaur.

Linking up with Tamis Amis this week. Have fun checking out more FO's!

Mystery Item

Finished!

But what is it????

I'll tell you when it's dry and warm.

"You knitted me a whole sweater!"

You know how when you're soooo close to completion on a project, you just can't put it down? No matter how late it gets, you just have to finish it? That was the case with my son's sweater last night. That's something I love about bottom-up raglan sweaters: once you join the sleeves and body it truly does "progress like a house on fire," as EZ states in Knitting Without Tears. Doubly so when you're knitting for a 2-year-old.

Instead of knitting a nice ribbed neckline to match the rest of the sweater, I cast off purl-wise in the contrasting color. Why? Because my son is vehemently against choky, itchy necklines and I would like him to actually wear this sweater.

After binding off, I set it for a nice soak and put it down to dry.

I still have to graft the underarms, and then the final touch will be a cute little felt dinosaur sewn on to the front.
Unless I decide to cut it down the middle.
You never know.

Oh, and the title of the post is what Vyvyan exclaimed this morning when he awoke to see it drying on the bed.
:)

And now for something completely different!

Hello everyone!
Today I wanted to share a non-fiber project. Ever since I've been working at a big box craft store I've had a few overpowering feelings:
1) An urge in the artistic direction (I work primarily in the art department, after all)
2) An overwhelming desire to get away from mass-production
3) A secret underlying hatred of the human race.

I guess number 3 is unrelated to this post...but it's still true.

So in addition to arts and crafts supplies, my store also sells home decor. There are these seriously adorable little 12x12 prints for sale. They're cartooney little pictures made for a child's room- a tiger hiding behind bushes, a rocket going out into space, etc and every time I walk by them I think, "dang those are so cute! I want one for my son's room!" And then I think about how NOT unique that would be. How much more would those pictures mean to me if they were made with my son specifically in mind? What if I made one myself?

In fact, I decided on something even better: My son and I each got a 12x12 canvas, and I drew a line on each with my charcoal pencil. I instructed him, "Paint below the line with green." Of course, he's 2 so I ONLY PUT OUT GREEN. I put out a few different shades of green, but left it at that. Once we were finished with the bottom (he strayed a bit, of course.) I cleaned all the brushes, set out new paint and said, "Paint above the line with blue!" Off we went.

Then, I went online for simple outline drawings of our favorite dinosaurs. I printed them out, enlarged at 150% and then we waited for our backgrounds to dry. In the meantime we painted some little wooden letters to spell out our dino names and then ... Well then I gave him a bath because he needed it. And also because he put SO much paint on his canvas that it was seriously refusing to dry.

I glued on the letters while he played with a puzzle nearby, and then I added the dinosaurs. Now, I can't draw. This is a fact, and is why I went with a printout. I used black to trace the outline of the dinos, as fast as possible. I used a LOT of black, laying it on thickly and quickly. Then, simply flipped the paper over and pressed it down on the canvas being careful not to smudge. Voila! Dinosaur outline!

Then Vyvyan came back over and he "painted" his dino. (I held his hand steady and basically painted it for him) We set them out to dry, and now we have 2 cute paintings to put in his room. And the best part is that we did it ourselves so they will be much more special and unique.

And here they are!

The T-Rex is still not dry, which is why it looks kind of blurry in the picture. Once he dries, I will draw on his sharp teeth with a black permanent marker.
So now you know my favorite dinosaur. Except, Stegosaurus isn't really my favorite dinosaur. Except, it is. See, my favorite favorite is the Dimetrodon but it turns out dimetrodon wasn't technically a dinosaur at all. (Betcha didn't know that.) Stegosaurus is a close second.
So,
What's YOUR favorite dinosaur?

Giveaway Winner!

I used random.org to pick out a number (the max is 65 instead of 71 because there were a few replies to comments that I didn't want to count as double entries) and the winner is commenter #57.
Congratulations to Susan, fellow blogger of SusanD1408CrochetAddict! I'll be sending out this little parcel as soon as possible.
Thank you to everyone who entered; I love doing giveaways and will have to host another quite soon.

WIP Wednesday

You know how some projects you just speed through? You buy the yarn and before you even have a chance to input it into your Ravelry stash it's all used up and you have a new hat or scarf?
 I love those projects. However, I seem to have a lot of the other type going on right now: The ones that languish in a bag somewhere, wondering when you are ever going to sew the pieces together. The ones that are large, comprised of boring stitch patterns, and often involve lots of finishing work.

The project I'm sharing today was first started on July 1, 2012. It has been in a state of near-completion since September and I finally got around to sewing all of the pieces together. It's still not done, however, because I have to sew on the buttons and... well it has sat around my room for so long that 2 of them are missing!

So yeah: I'll be honest with you guys. Since I last posted about this Pea Wee Coat all that's changed is I sewed on the collar and 2 pockets.
But isn't my son modeling his cousin's new coat adorable???? He spent a good deal of time looking for the missing buttons with me, because he wants me to start on his sweater. ;)

Linking up with Tamis Amis today
Happy knitting!

BLOGIVERSARY!!!! 2nd year edition

Remember, remember the 5th of November....

2 years ago today my brother, sister in law and myself were sitting around the living room talking when somehow the subject came around to blogs. We had each had one in the past, mostly of the self-brooding MySpace variety and started wondering what we would blog about now that we were grown. It didn't take me long to decide I would start a knitting blog, and after my brother suggested the title, "Don't Drool on the Wool," I kind of just up and ran with it. As my first post suggested, I didn't really have any idea whether it would stick, but I'm glad it did!

For a long time Don't Drool on the Wool was really just a knitting diary that happened to be on the internet- I had no followers for nearly a year, but after blogging steadily and starting to link up with Tamis Amis as well as getting active by reading and commenting on others' blogs I managed to find myself smack in the middle of this awesome knitting/blogging community!

You know what I love about blogiversaries? They're the perfect opportunity for a giveaway!
First, the rules:
1) This giveaway is open to Earth residents only: I can pay shipping around the world but not to Mars, please.
2) You do not have to be a follower of my blog to enter: just leave a comment!

Now for the prizes!
I don't know about you but I look forward eagerly to each publication of Interweave's Knitscene. I picked up an extra copy of the Winter 2012 edition for one of you lucky readers!

Also snuggled in your parcel will be a skein of yummy Plymouth Yarn's Worsted Merino Superwash. This squishy worsted, in a color hand-chosen for you by my 2 year old son, rolls in at 218 yards: perfect for a hat or cowl this gift-giving season.

Speaking of giving gifts! I think it is very important to label your hand-knit presents with washing instructions or fiber content, and what better way to do it than these super cute foil gift tags?

Aren't they adorable? I can't get over the owl, seriously.

So there you have it. Just leave a comment on this post and you'll be entered into my 2 year blogiversary. I'll leave the comments open until November 12th and pull a name and announce it on Tuesday November 13th.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave a way for me to contact you in your comment. Ravelry ID is perfect if you don't want to leave your email out in the open. If you are the winner and I don't hear back from you by the following week (November 20th, Tuesday) I will have to pick a runner up.

As always, Happy Knitting, and thank you thank you thank you for reading, commenting, and being an omnipresent force that occasionally deters me from casting on 6,000 new projects at once.

COMMENTS NOW CLOSED! Thanks to everyone who entered & good luck!

Sock Head FO

My hat is finally complete. It seemed to go on and on and on, probably because it is like the longest hat ever. And it was made out of fingering weight yarn.

I think if I attempted this knit again, I wouldn't knit straight to the full 13". This particular hat is meant to be slouchy, and the decrease rows lend to that effect, but I do think I'd like a nice fingering weight hat without the excess at the top.

It makes me feel a bit like Dobby, but it's a hat made out of bright green zombie yarn so that's to be expected.
Here it is without the brim rolled up:

I'm soooo sorry my pictures suck by the way. I was trying to take advantage of the lighting in the morning but only had my cell phone camera. Weird... tilted pictures... Sorry.

Anyways this particular hat will be making it's trip to my friend quite soon. She is healing quite well from her surgery, and the last time I went to visit we walked around to the park with my son and she was almost just like new. Except, you know, she's a zombie now.

Sock Head Project Page
Size 1 needles
Yarn: Fishnits Opulence

Woodsies

Duplicate stitch was a disaster. Trying to combine stranding with intarsia was a hot mess, and I finally hit the happy medium.
Good ol' intarsia.

I'm just using small lengths of yarn and spit-slicing as needed: I did this all in one sitting! It's going by so fast, and I can't wait to finish the pair.
I was seriously about to give this project up! I was so bummed out, too, because I bought the pattern and yarn together and I hate having to re-purpose yarn when I got it specifically for one thing. Especially when the pattern is so dang cute! I'm glad I tried plain intarsia- and because it's 100% wool I'm sure all the uneven stitches will block out revealing the cutest badgers ever!

Random Sauce

Happy November! I plan on doing a monthly review for October (ahem, and also September...) this Sunday when I have a day off and so today will just be a quick update. In case you're wondering I did finish something this month and I'm just waiting to get some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I'll use this as a lame segue to show ya'll me and my bf's Halloween costumes:

We had a gay ol' time taking the goblin trick or treating, and then stealing all of his candy.

Well, Halloween has come and gone... every day brings us closer to that certain gift-giving season, and my knitting is far, far behind.

I did, however, start working on my Woodsy Association mitts. I chose the badger to knit first, and decided to work it all in duplicate stitch after knitting a solid square. Let me just tell you up front that this was the stupidest decision ever on my part.
1) I don't really enjoy duplicate stitch because it feels too much like sewing and not enough like knitting.
2) Duplicate stitch is fine for small areas and blocks of color that line up nicely: not so much for patches of color unless you plan on cutting and weaving in all the ends in which case you might as well just do the dang thing in intarsia.
3) I freaking hate plain stockinette stitch when working flat.
4) It feels absolutely useless to finish knitting a little square and then realize you still have to sew on a badger/wolf/owl/raccoon/stag.

So basically, I got about this far before realizing that doing it this way was a quick way to crazytown.

And yeah. I'm just going to leave it like that. There's no going back on all that duplicate stitch. But at least I know that cast on number is good for me, and as long as I do the stranded intarsia VERY loosely, I should have some cute badger mitts to show off soon!

You know what else I hate about duplicate stitch?
I can't show you my work in progress and have it be at all interesting. Why? Cuz it's a square of brown stockinette stitch. YAWN!

Oooh! Ooh! Ooooh! And my anniversary is coming up! Year 2! I'll be announcing my giveaway prizes soon so keep an eye out.

Happy knitting!