with the best hat

My friends Sarah and Laura and I were asked by our LYS to decorate a hat to be auctioned off for a local theatre troupe. Their up coming show, Puttin' on the Ritz is being hosted by the hat ladies society are they are auctioning off hats to raise money. Knit was asked to decorate/design three of them, and as part of the Thursday night knit-night crew, we were asked to make one our own.

We started a few weeks ago with a white top hat, a bunch of our scrap yarn, a free Saturday and our imaginations - we ended up with our very own Puttin' on the Knits Hat!



On the front is a collection of flowers that have been crocheted and knit and sewn on the hat to a lattice work of fun-fur. On the sides are teeny-tiny little outfits knit up and then sewn on.







I just love it! The other ladies from the Saturday afternoon group and the owners did their own, which came out beautifully as well:

Here is the And They Called It Macaroni hat by the owners/employees (which is a bit big on my peanut size head):



but it comes complete with feather duster!



And the gorgeous Saturday Women hat:



Which has a felted butterfly on the side that I had a hard time getting a shot of:



There are more/better pictures here if you're a Raveler in the Knit forums. It was fun to make, and I'll be interested to see how the auction goes on opening night I think it is? All the "designers" are going to get all dolled up and go to see the show. It should be a good time.

Pictures, tid-bits and Charleston Sn'B

I just realized that I forgot to put up pictures of the beautiful scarf that my Home-town Sn'B made me - details here. I've been wearing it about the house to keep the chill off. It's not actually cold-cold here, but in the mornings and in the evenings it can get a bit chilly and the scarf does the trick perfectly.
Let me know if you want to know who made each square. I made some feeble attempts at guessing when they gave it to me, and got about half of them right.

Last night I went to the Sn'B closest to me in Charleston at a store called Knit. They had tons and tons of beautiful yarn and great books. I wondered around for a bit, but then had to sit down before I let temptation run away with me. I'm trying to do stash-project knitting only right now. And/or buy project-induced stash only. Meaning I have to have a project for which I need the yarn, and I can't already have something close in my stash. I feel like I have so much yarn I'm not using as is. It makes me feel more accomplished when I know I've used a bit of what I have. It's like clearing up your email list. I hate having unread messages staring at me. If I can take care of them one by one I feel better. Same with the yarn, I use up what I have for a particular project, it's nice to 'cross it off the list'. We talked a bit last night about stash size and sash envy. I think for me it's people who have a project in mind for all the yarn they have. Or only have a small stash that they've acquired from projects they've worked on. Then again.... it is nice to have yarn in your stash already when you see a project you want to work on and a lot of the yarn I have and am using comes from great buys... *shrug*

The people there were very nice, a couple recognized me from ravelry. They actually gave me a great idea for what to do with my foliage hat that was way off gauge - I'm going to try it first, and then I'll post about how it went. It was a little weird to sit down where I knew no one, and I know that'll change as I go more often, but it made me miss my Chicago groups, and more aware of how a newbie feels walking in the door.

I started a pair of fetchings, but I don't think I'll have the yarn to finish them (see, this is where using from your stash doesn't work!). Maybe I'll make each pair in a different color... with same color accents...hmm... I'll let you know. I'm using Lambs Pride in aztec - I just love this color.