Yarn- not just for breakfast anymore!

I finished a hat for my friend Kristan's birthday- she had requested it, but didn't know that she was going to get it for her birthday, so she was suitably surprised. It's not just any old hat though, it's a Futurama-inspired Brain Slug Hat!



I'm still working on my Swallowtail, which has become more and more enjoyable to work on as I understand the lace pattern better. I finally finished the required 14 repeats of the Budding Lace patten, and then got worried that the shawl might be too small, so after seeing in the pattern comments that other people had added an extra five repeats of Budding Lace, I did the same, and am happier with how the size is looking.


I've also started (and am almost halfway through with) the Lily of the Valley Border, which contains nupps (basically, to make a nupp, in one row, you increase one stitch by, in this case, five stitches, and in the next row, you purl them all back together). I had been very hesitant to attempt a pattern with nupps, but they're turning out to be not so bad, if a little fiddly.


I actually have a lot of knitting projects going right now, including a blanket for Elijah to keep in his car, and I'm supposed to alter the sleeves of my mom's Strands of Pearls sweater, because they came out too short when she tried the sweater on (even though they're exactly as long as the measurements that I took, I guess when she wore the sweater, more material was taken up in width while stretching than I thought it would). And then Elijah got jealous of my nice warm slippers, and asked me to make him a pair, which I haven't started yet. They'll be interesting, as for the outer layer, he chose a yarn that's a wool-llama mix. I believe that llama felts fine, but we'll see how it works.

I'm also making a fuzzy cat mat: