Recently in Bea Ellis Let It Snow! Category

Pattern: Bea Ellis Knitwear Let It Snow! hat
Yarn: Hat: Dale of Norway Heilo in #3152 Brown and #0020 Natural. Lining: Marks & Kattens Camomille in #208 Cocoa.
Needles: US4 16" circular and dpns, US2 dpns; bamboo

I finished the hat *just* before we left on Christmas Eve. It's going to be a late gift anyway, as the recipient is halfway around the world. I wove in all the ends, tucked in a gift card, stuck the whole thing in a cute bag, and ta-da! It's ready to mail.

Doing stranded decreases on double-pointed needles can be really tricky! Even trickier when you're talking to a group of knitbloggers at the same time.

Here's the stranding on the inside. I got so bold as to strand across 6 stitches. There was a row of 9 stitches, but as this is for a child, I decided to twist the background and contrast colors at stitch 5. It wouldn't do for curious little hands to go poking around the top of the hat!

My opinion on sewing versus knitting the lining to the hat: when my niece got her Traditional hat, the first thing she did was to twirl it around by the tassel and then smear it with birthday cake icing. Then she proceeded to poke her fingers through all the loops and, in essence, tried to tear the hat apart. I was wincing with pain as she did this, despite the assurances of my brother and sister-in-law that she did, indeed love the hat. I recovered the hat from her grasp and proceeded to tighten all the knots and make sure that all the ends were woven in properly, and discovered that a few of my stitches attaching the lining to the hat were already loose. Having fixed those, I resolved to find a better solution the next time around, since Let It Snow! was designated for another child.

The knitted-on lining feels sturdy and despite my persistent pulling, has not thrown any stitches out of alignment. I should've knit a few more hat rows before knitting the two together, as it shows on the top picture that the lining is weighting the hat down a bit. With hats that are put on and taken off quite often, it's better to not have to worry about stitches being ripped out. I'd use the knitted-on lining technique again.

I know I'm being the flaky KAL host now, but I figured everyone deserves a break. (Plus, I'm hosting yet another cold (augh!), fever, and other delightful bacteria in the system...)

Who's been shopping? Who's been neglecting their knitting to buy pressies, bake cookies, go to parties, and ignore their blog for a bit of holiday relaxation? Me! And if you're reading this, step away from the computer and go do something fun. We'll all catch up next week. Have a wonderful holiday, everyone!

(Still here? Some of you are just persistent! Make sure to check our gallery to see who's done with their project!)

Sweaters & Vests
◊ Kim of Knitter in Progress has joined! She's trying to decide whether to knit a hat or a Dale of Norway Olympic sweater, Albertville. Well Kim, seeing as I put you here..... just kidding! Kim's warm-up to the sweater was her fabulous Christmas Rose Bag.
◊ Jen has put her sweater in timeout. Hey, it's the holidays, and she's got more than half of it done.
◊ Jill has swatched for her sweater, yay! She's got some initial thoughts on stranded knitting, but Jill, don't give up. It gets better along the way.
◊ Beth has put her Poetry in Stitches sweater in her 2006 to-do list.

Socks & Stockings
◊ Jessica, whom I met at the knitbloggers get-together, has a dorky picture of me wearing my unfinished Let It Snow! hat.
◊ Liz has finished her stockings! Woo hoo, they look so good. Everyone, go take a look!
◊ Kate has decided to continue with her stocking! It's a great-looking sock, Kate, smurfy and imperfect as it is!

Mittens
◊ Liz needs to seam three mittens (one is already done). And she's doing another pair. Way to go, Liz!

Hats & Headbands
◊ Jillian bares all (ha ha) with her almost-finished headband!
◊ Julia will be working overtime on the Pirate Hat, 3 days left till Christmas! Go Julia, go!
◊ You'll just have to take my word for it that Andrea is almost to the decreases of her Flenten hat! Her colors are beautiful. We'll have to wait until next week to see them, though. I hope!
◊ Sarah has knit yet another hat, the really cool Triple Patterned Watch Cap. That was a quick knit, Sarah! It looks fabby!
◊ Susan has made some progress on her hat! Check out her really cool colors! I think we have another stranded knitter addict here....
◊ Nancy's Traditional hat is knitted with a third color! She left her pattern in the airline seat pocket, but she's going to try to figure the rest of it out!
◊ Jessica finished her husband's Pirates hat, and it fit him! Nothing that a little bit of blocking can't fix, eh Jessica?
◊ Your host has been trying to find her camera. You'd think in 800 square feet of apartment a camera would be an easy thing to find. Not. Anyway, Let It Snow! is finished; I will not be attaching a pompom or a tassel, as I like the top detail. But enough! More on said hat when said camera is recovered.

On with the festivities!

This site is called Cute Overload! ;). Don't say I didn't warn you.

A few people are doing holiday knitting, others trying to catch up with old projects, yet others keeping the fixation on colorwork and going along with it. Ready for the latest? Here we go:

Sweaters & Vests
◊ Rebekkah talks about almost succumbing to mindless purchasing! (Like it hasn't struck *you* before.) She wisely settled on color cards instead.
◊ Jill has been busy with her Christmas knitting; drop by and ask her about the KAL, will you?
◊ Sydney is almost done with Danger, woohoo! This was also her first foray into steeking.
◊ Julia will be moving to hats now; she'll be knitting Adrian's Pirates hat for her teenager.
◊ Catherine will also be moving to hats, since she'll be making Traditional.
◊ Beth has posted some photos of her Poetry in Stitches kit! Such colors, what a great pattern!

Socks & Stockings
◊ Jess has a sneak peek of stocking #1. Halfway there!
◊ Kate has paused (and I hope temporarily) at the heel of stocking #1. Kate, don't give up!

Mittens
◊ Nanette of Knitting In Color will be knitting Selbu from Sheila McGregor's Traditional Scandinavian Knitting. She's added her own twist, knitting little people on the cuff! Also... Nanette has written a book on stranded knitting, for anyone interested in even more colorwork!
◊ Terri has been busy, but she's given us a sneak peek of her mitten!
◊ Carie in her December 5 entry has more progress pictures of Selbu.
◊ Katie has finished one Frostrosen mitten! She overcame those pesky gauge issues and did a fabulous job, didn't she?
◊ My birthday buddy Véronique has posted a tip on knitting from charts. Quite a logical one, don't you think?

Hats & Headbands
◊ Prolific Sarah has finished yet another hat, the Triple Patterned Watch Cap, this time in so-relevant-for-holidays red and white! Check out those floats, they are sooo neat.
◊ Jessica has the first sighting of a Pirate on her blog! Looks good in black and white, Jessica! (And I have a feeling your son may like this, too!)
◊ Your host has reached the decrease rows of her Let It Snow! hat. Stranded knitting and decreases at the same time, how exciting!

Here's a closeup of the lining, whose edge was knitted to the hat. Here's how I did it: I used a crochet provisional cast-on and knit my 2.5" of cotton lining. I threaded my live stitches onto a length of worsted. Then as I undid the crochet loops I picked up the resulting live stitches and started knitting the pattern.

It must be noted that however many rows you did with the smaller needle for the lining *does not* mean you should knit the same number rows with the larger needle for the hat itself. It's a matter of measuring every now and then. When I thought the lining and the hat where about the same length, I went ahead and knit one more row of hat. The next row, I knit both the hat and the lining together, stitch for stitch, continuing in pattern. I picked up the lining stitch from back to front (that is, if you're facing the hat/wool side and the lining/cotton side is inside).

This method seems to work just as well as sewing the lining after completing the hat. I'll wait until I've finished and blocked it, though, before I give my final opinion. I have one more--Ufserud--to go!