Knit-Nerd-Rant

This pattern is for a fun, festive hat made with a couple different types of yarn that create very different effects.  It's simple enough, though the changes between needle sizes and weights of yarn can be a bit of exercise for your fingers.  Depending on how Kaiser Wilhelm-y you want it to be, you can do the tassel or leave it off. So, my mother asked for a hat for Christmas and sent me the following picture as a guide for what I should make for her, but she wanted it in red: Essentially, this would mean felting using variegated yarn with an eyelash yarn around the brim that wouldn't felt and would provide a different kind of fluffy-ness. 2 difficulties with this: 1 - local yarn shop didn't have any eyelash yarn and no access to big box craft shops that would carry it, 2 - I've never intentionally felted anything and the whole process scares me more than it should scare any rational, experienced knitter. When I went to my LYS ( Looped ), I was able to find

Inspired by one of my new favorite writers , I want to write a brief letter to 2013. Dear 2013, Bite me. You had some good moments, like a promotion and lots of positive feedback and travel for work. However, those times when you inflicted incredible harm to the people I love were not cool. I have spent too much time in hospitals for one year during your twelve months. Too many tears. Way too many tears.  It's not for nothing that my mother said this year "if what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, we must be like Godzilla by now." I want to burn you in effigy every day leading to your end. You have become dangerously unbalanced and unhealthy. I don't want to see any other years like this again. No pathetic late night drunk calls seeking reconciliation. No sad texts or emails. Just go. And take your pain and suffering with you. Sincerely and without affection of any kind, -E KnitNerdRant Dear 2014, You look cute. I'll see you on the 1st. I'll be t

So I had to quickly think up some gifts for some of the in-laws-to-be. We went down to visit them for Thanksgiving, and will be up with my family for Christmas this year. So we decided we would bring down everyone's Christmas gifts while we were in town. Sister-in-law-to-be and her fiance are tough to buy for, so we got them a couple gift cards.  I felt really guilty about it, since it's not the first time and it always just feels like a cop-out.  So I decided to use some scrap yarn lying around to make something to put the card in - a gift card cozy. Shout out to my friends at Hudson Trail Outfitters , regional chain in the DC area, and their promotional gift card rebate deal that gave me one to use for demonstration purposes!  It's cute, takes very little time to knit up, and makes it feel less like a cop-out to give someone a gift card.  I made 2 of them on the 2 hour flight there, so definitely very quick! I used these supplies: Scrap yarn (doesn'