With one week to spare I’ve finished the only knitting that I am doing for the holiday season.. I cut my list very short this year so as to not stress myself out. The holidays are usually pretty hectic around here and this year money is tighter than ever.. so I really didn’t need to make myself neurotic over the one thing (knitting) that makes me happy. I’ve dug through my drawer of hand knits and am gifting some of the FO’s of the past that I didn’t end up wearing for one reason or another.. my SIL ended up with a blue Basic Cable hat (from the SNB book) and I’m gifting my Branching Out Scarf to hubby’s Aunt who lives in Florida.. because she is in a climate where a cotton scarf is appropriate and because she loves getting knitwear and understands the amount of work that goes into something.

This hat (The Hermione Hat) is going to Munchkin’s teacher — she keeps hinting how much she loves the knitted things that Munchkin and I wear, she loves Harry Potter, and Munchkin says that pink is her favorite color. I hope she likes this hat.. I’m pretty happy with the way it came out even if I did have to fudge the pattern pretty fiercely.

Pattern: Hermione Hat Yarn: Wool-Ease Worsted in Blush approx 125 yds

Needles: size 6 circular – magic loop method

Mods: a ton. I changed the needle size, did a long tail cast on instead of trying to attempt to learn something new while on a deadline, did only 2 repeats of the cable pattern, decreased in the purl stitches until there were one left and then decreased by K2tog in the center of the cable stitches to make a star pattern on the top of the hat (and because the directions made no sense to me when I was finishing the hat at 1am the other night)

On a totally unrelated note.. I was bored today and decided that maybe I needed bangs. I didn’t actually cut my hair, its sort of pulled over and tucked into the victory rolls on the sides of my head (the flowers are hiding the wonky bits) I was going for sort of a rockabilly/pinup + goth type look. I’ve been reading a lot of fashion blogs and watching makeup tutorials lately, and I guess it rubbed off. Sadly, I didn’t even go anywhere today even though I had done my hair AND makeup. I included a second photo below because I ended up taking out the victory rolls because my hair was WAY too heavy and I had about a gajillion pins in it to hold it up. I ended up keeping the side swept ‘bangs’ and doing high pigtails in the back.. I think I need a bigger flower!  Are “Bettie bangs” totally overdone at this point?