Ta-da! This was super quick and quite fun to knit. The cables increase the squish factor of the Malabrigo, and while the variegation is a bit busy, I am quite excited to send this westward to its rightful owner. Here’s another shot of the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret, in which the dog demonstrates his usefulness as a table/backdrop:
Using the eyeballing method, this hat took about half a skein of Malabrigo. I may make one for myself out of my sassymetrical leftovers. This is where a scale would come in handy…I’ll keep you posted. In other news, here are some pictures of yesterday’s victories:
Delicious collards from my local farmers’ market, cooked with garlic, ginger and chile.
My very own yarn! (Dog for scale.) I’m not sure if you can get a sense for the thickness of this yarn, but most of this feels like a light worsted or even a heavy dk. I need to get better at spinning the spindle levelly, and at joining new pieces of fiber without getting an ugly blip in my yarn, but I am feeling really good about this. Dividing my roving into more vertical pieces, and doing more pre-drafting to both lengthen the roving strips and separate the fibers from each other made all the difference. I had a lot of fun with this, and am looking forward to practicing a bit more.
I also have a recent yarn acquisition to share, purchased at my new LYS. This is absolutely gorgeous, local, undyed alpaca. I bought two 8 oz 660 yd skeins, and I’m wondering if I could turn this into a drapey Gathered Pullover. What do you think? Other ideas include a luxurious shawl or lacey shrug.
Thanks also for all of your kind words about graduate school and the transition. It feels truly indulgent to be able to set most of my own schedule and focus on reading and writing and thinking. I’m sure my anxiety will begin decreasing once my seminars get past their introductory meetings and I am able to work through the transitional cobwebs by participating.
Alright — off to do a bit more reading, and then some baking, spinning and frolicking with the dog. Happy weekend!
barefoot rooster 
Love the spinning! It’s really coming along. Congrats!
The slouchy beret looks great! I love how the variegated yarn looks with the cable pattern. Your spinning looks awesome too!
I like the idea of a Gathered Pullover with that gorgeous alpaca. I’ve been loving that pattern lately.
I know this is a little after the fact for you, but I am a relatively new knitter and very literal in pattern following. The first row (after the 1×1 rib indicates to do the cable pattern once. What do I do for the rest of each row — just knit it? Or, is it a repeat the 9 stitches of the cable pattern around each row.
Thanks for your help.