The Frog and the FO

This seems to be a week of firsts! I finally frogged a project and I finally finished a project. I started the Hermione socks but having changed both my needle size and starting number of stitches the sock was going to be far too small. So the logical choice was to rip back and start again. It's amazing how reluctant I was to do this! I think the knowledge of the time spent knitting up to that point meant that every stitch I pulled off the needle felt like time lost. Conversely poorly fitting socks would be far worse in the long run and would remind me of time wasted making a whole two socks that didn't fit.

The sock

Back to the start

Another exciting first for this week is my first ever finished object!! I counted the other day and I have 16 works in progress (WIPs) currently sitting in my room. I can now say that's down to 15! Still a huge number but I'm getting there. No new projects can be cast on until I'm down to 10 projects. I think I'm going to set that as my new maximum. What's that I hear you say? You don't care about WIPs, what's the FO? Fair enough really, I am rambling...

Well back in July I went to PomFest (see my post here) which was a combination of a yarn market and a series of talks. I made it to PomFest late on Saturday afternoon so missed the talks but still got to see all the yarn stalls (yay!). I got chatting to the lady running the Garthenor stall and ended up standing there for a good twenty minutes. Garthenor is a company based in Wales which sells 100% British wool yarn and has been around for a few years now. Inspired by her enthusiasm and humour, I bought 100g of Llanwenog DK yarn which is naturally a beautiful creamy white colour.

Garthenor has a huge range of yarn from different sheep breeds from around the UK and on their website they have a page for each one explaining their origins. I really like their story of the journey from sheep to finished ball of yarn. Their website is here.

Less than ten minutes after getting home from PomFest, I cast on the Llanwenog to make a hat! My first ever hat as well. The yarn is described as giving good stitch definition so I chose a cable hat pattern. My Ravelry pattern notes are here

It started as a moustache of a hat while doing the rib.

Then a fringe:

I quickly got to the cabling, the best bit! I think basic cabling makes a plain hat more interesting without much extra effort. At this point I went to Tanzania on holiday so of course I took some knitting.

This hat was knit on a plane: (with a cheeky G&T)

And on a beach in Zanzibar: (yes those are my pale english legs)

And then finally finished! 

It's surprisingly hard to take a photo of a hat on yourself! The first three photos looked a bit manic because I was concentrating so much, looking at the floor seems to be the way to go!

If you would like to try Garthenor yarn but want to squish it first, they are sponsoring the Great London Yarn Crawl after party and will be there with a stall. Tickets are already be sold out but there may be a waiting list. More details on the Yarn in the City website here. I think I might take my hat and show the people at the Garthenor stall :)