Let's turn from failure to stunning success

I'm still soliciting advice for my Desperate Cry For Help so feel free to add any input you think might be helpful. I'd also like to thank everyone for the kind words of encouragement I've received. It strokes my poor bruised ego and keeps me going.

Today I would like to turn your attention away from the potential failure that is my Father's sweater and refocus you on some fine-ass knitting.

I went to a dinner party last week. It was a casual dinner for all the graduates and their wives. I was very excited to go and be the proud wife of the Graduate. I was even more excited to go without the children since Grandpa was in town. Time alone with The Greatest is at a premium lately, so an entire dinner alone was very decadent. I tried to mingle with the other wives. I've realized that I've reached a certain age where I have no patience for ditsy young girls anymore. I'm not that old, so this realization makes me feel old and sad. Especially since I used to be the very ditsiest of ditsy young girls.

I did meet a nice woman who had brought her baby with her, it was her third child, and she was still nursing. She was transplanted from the Midwest, like myself. We had much in common and I adored her on sight. She lamented the lack of baby hats in the southwest. She claimed all the babies were under dressed and she could not find a hat for her baby to wear at night, or in the air conditioning (yes, the air conditioning is turned on in many places already and it is only March. I may die this summer but that is a different topic all together). I was hesitant to offer, you never know what people will think, but I volunteered to knit her a hat. She was ecstatic. So I set about knitting her a hat for her baby. I wasn't sure I would get it done in two days time, in time to give it to her at the graduation. But the baby is a tiny one, thus the hat was a tiny one so I did indeed finish the hat in time. The Mother sought me out the moment I walked through the door for the graduation. She had heard through the grapevine (The Greatest) that I had finished the hat and she couldn't wait to see it. She might have been more excited about the hat than the graduation. It is so nice to knit for someone who is equally excited to receive.

And what hat did I knit for the poor hatless baby?

Pattern: Shidar

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino

Needles: 2 size 3 Addi Turbos

Modifications: I first saw the baby Shidar here at Anny Purls. But the actual modifications were found here at Something from Nothing.

Review: I love this yarn. I love cashmere and cashmere blend yarns. They're just so soft. Sinfully soft. They glide through your fingers like no other. After I work with cashmere I want to cry when I pick up other yarns. It's just not the same. If only cashmere would wear better. I would knit exclusively with cashmere cost be damned. I guess that's why cashmere wears so terribly. Because God wants my children to go to college. But for a baby hat I figured the Cashmerino in my stash would hold up until the baby outgrew it. The finished object was delightfully soft and squishy.

The Shedir pattern was very fun to knit. Upon initial download the chart scared me. I might have cried a little just looking at it wondering if I could knit something so complicated, especially under a deadline. But looks can be deceiving and this was a quick knit indeed. The mods for the baby version said to drop all the knit straight rows after the cables were finished. I did so and that might have been a mistake. I think the decreases were to severe, and the hat might have been creeping up off the baby's head, but I wasn't close enough to the baby to tell for sure. It might be better to knit a decrease row, then one row plain, but I'm just speculating here. What I do know to be fact is this is one cute hat!

I wish I had taken a photo of the baby in the hat, she was extra cute. And you can fold the ribbing up if the hat is a little big, and the hat is even cuter that way. But I'm a bad blogger and I missed the photo ops. My sincerest apologies.