Duplicate stitch madness

And we're back after that short Thanksgiving break! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and that everyone got to eat loads and loads of pie. For those of you who don't celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope that your week went well and you also got to eat loads and loads of pie! My week went great, mostly because I had lots of free time for knitting, since I was boycotting my homework. During my free time, I did a ton of work on my special project (pictures will be forthcoming!) and finished the brioche hat! The hat is still a bit too big (tiny head probs), but I've decided that I don't care, and that it's perfect. I think that it also might have grown when I washed it, which is a problem that I didn't foresee since, well, I didn't exactly swatch before starting.

I know, I know, I wrote an entire post on the importance of swatching...and how I was going to be a good little knitter and actually do it. Well, I didn't. I blame it on yarn fever and wanting to squish a real live finished hat. Also I loved the pattern, and I'm going to keep coming up with more and more excuses until I stop feeling guilty about not swatching.

Anyways, off from my guilty conscious and onto more about the hat! The yarn that I used was Manos del Uruguay's Maxima, in the colors Purple Rain (variegated, MC) and Kohl (grey, CC). I liked this yarn a lot; it's very soft, and has absolutely lovely colors that didn't fade when I washed it. I think that it worked really well for this hat, but I'm almost wishing that I would have used a different color for my contrasting color, which was the grey. I thought that he pattern got a little lost within it, but that could just be because I'm nitpicking at my project. The one thing that was bad (and it's not even all that bad, perhaps I should just call it an annoyance) about this yarn was that it didn't frog overwhelmingly well. I had to redo the hat because my first try was too large, and the yarn was sticking to itself all the way through. It also just didn't look as nice as the yarn that hadn't been frogged. I don't really think that it impacted the project very significantly, however, especially after it was washed and (lightly) blocked. Looking at it now, I can't tell the difference at all. I've worn the hat a few times, and have gotten several compliments on it, so overall I'm very pleased at how it turned out, especially with this being my very first brioche project.

On to the special project that I've been alluding to for several posts now! It's nowhere near finished, so you'll have to bear with my work in progress photos. A little backstory on why I started this project: I've decided to apply to graduate school to obtain my master's in creative writing again, and this scarf is for one of the pieces that I've written. It's definitely ambitious, and I know that I'm going to have more than one late night trying to finish the darn thing, but I absolutely love how it's turning out so far. It's basically a knitted tube with bunches and bunches and bunches of duplicate stitching all over it. I'm over half way done with the stockinette part, and am just now starting on the first parts of the duplicate stitch pattern. It's definitely something new, but I absolutely love how it's turning out, and that I was able to make my own pattern and actually execute it!

If you need me, I'll be over here duplicate stitching the rest of my life away. That's all for now, and I hope all you readers have a wonderful rest of the week!