FO Friday -- Peerie Posies Edition

Yay, Friday!  Yay, awesome finished hat!  I'm too excited to do anything but this:

(with apologies for the wonky photos, we were running short on time...)



and this:



and this, for no reason other than I love my goofy old gimpy dog.


(There's a reason we call her the "Spitting Cobra".)

This hat is one of my favoritest knitting projects ever.  It was a little intimidating with all the colors (7) and the number you had to knit with at once (2) and the ends that needed to be woven in when all was said and done (eleventy billion), but really it wasn't hard.  And it was SO worth it in the end. 

Several people have commented that colorwork seems too scary, and I totally would've agreed with you all a few weeks ago.  Now I'm here to tell you to get over your fears and give it a shot.  These videos by the folks at Philosopher's Wool are incredibly helpful in getting started and Kate's pattern is kind of genius, so you pretty much can't lose.

Here are my bits of advice for anyone who wants to take the plunge:

If you're the type who snips yarn at a color change and then weaves ends in rather than carrying them along, stop and do it along the way.  I wove ends at the end of every chart and it worked great.  Otherwise, I think I might've been swallowed up by the sheer volume of them.

Go read Kate's explanation of the crown decreases on her blog.  It makes loads of sense out of something that looked utterly nonsensical to me.

Finally, don't tug too hard on that Rowan Fine Tweed when you're trying to keep from getting ladders between dpns.  I broke the yarn 3 separate times resulting in lots of tinking back to get a tail long enough to weave in and one or two swear words, and I wasn't even pulling that hard.

That's it.  I'm working on the mittens this weekend, and Sock and some Christmas stuff, keeping busy while Mr. Right is traveling for a long weekend.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have some embarrassingly girly TV to watch and a load of uninterrupted knitting to attend to.

Hope y'all have a fabulous weekend!  You could kick it off by visiting FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday for lots more yarny success stories.