a speckled hat!

Whenever I walk into a yarn store, it's a dangerous thing. Especially when the cold weather is finally maybe sort of starting to show up and I have about a million projects stored in my Ravelry favorites that I want to tackle so bad. This hat is the product of my most recent trip and I am so happy with how it turned out!

I generally used this pattern, although my yarn wasn't quite at worsted weight, so I increased my cast on to 96 stitches instead of 72 to make the gauge right. Even so, it is not quite as slouchy as the pattern, but that is alright with me. The delicate speckles are super cute and the yarn is very soft, so I call this pattern a success! It is definitely a great launching point for a bunch of other projects I'm working on this fall!

Some other modifications I made (in case you were wondering):

-Again, because I wasn't using worsted weight yarn, I also increased the total rows to make the hat big enough for my head. I worked the color chart three times instead of just two.

-With the increase in stitches, my decreasing pattern wasn't exactly the same as the one listed in the pattern. Honestly, I don't think this made a ginormous difference so if you find yourself in the same shoes, don't stress too much about it.

What are you excited to be making this fall? :)

xoxo,

Abby

september days.

The last of summer flowers // stuffed peppers for two // the beginnings of my first color chart hat

I think I heard someone say once when I was in school that life only gets faster after you graduate. At the time, this was incredibly hard for me to believe. Now I see that whoever said this was right, but not in the way that I anticipated. Sometimes, it feels like the days move so slowly, but the weeks move so fast. 

This week Brandon and I celebrated his birthday just the way he wanted: with time with friends and dinner out at a restaurant we had never been to before (Pooles. Highly recommend if you're in Raleigh). And in just two weeks we will be in Nashville. It's crazy to think it's already been three weeks since we went for Labor Day.  And yet yesterday was the first day of fall, I started working on the first of my fall and winter knits, and Halloween pop-up stores are already showing up next to my Trader Joe's. 

I am at a weird place in my life right now where I'm alternating between wanting life to slow waaaaayyy down and wanting it to hurry up and get here. I'm figuring a lot of big life things out as I'm learning not just to transition into "real life" but also adjust to the idea of my life being the way it is for the forseeable future. And most of all I'm trying to be content and realize the gift that today is, and what to do with the waiting in-betweens. 

Happy fall, y'all, and thanks for listening to my ramblings,

Abby

EASY COFFEE COZY

It's Sunday! And you know what Sundays are good for...Starbucks! And you know what goes great with your Starbucks? This knitted coffee cozy!

This is a pattern that I did over Thanksgiving break in preparation for all of the delicious holiday Starbucks drinks around Christmas and it has worked out so well. It keeps your hands warm like gloves AND saves the environment from one more cardboard sleeve getting tossed (even if they are recycled originally). But let's not contain this cozy to just one season. After all, warm caffeine is good for New Years Day, Valentine's Day, random frigid days in March...the possibilities are endless.

Note: Because this yarn was so thin (below worsted weight for sure), I only did 30 for casting on. But for normal, worsted weight yarn, follow the pattern below. And if you're a beginner knitter and want to learn about this crazy business of DPNs click here.

Easy Coffee Cozy

Worsted weight yarn
4 Double Pointed Needles (DPNs)
Stitch marker
yarn needle

1. Cast on 35 stitches to three of your double pointed needles evenly (10-10-15)

2. Place stitch marker on first stitch and knit 3 purl 2 continuously in the round until the desired height. (Mine was about 3 and a half inches)

3. Bind off darn in ends with a yarn needle.

Enjoy through these winter months!