Quick Gifts

My cousin was thrilled when I dropped the black scarves off and showed me her bright blue coat.  Sure, I have a basement full of yarn!  As soon as I got home I dug through my stash and found a cone of Bramwell 4ply in a bright royal blue.  I have an empty cone so I weighed it, then the full cone, and figured I had 45grams.  The DK weight scarves I had previously made were in the 90s grams.  The black and red scarves were in the 70s grams.  Mmmm.  I opted to do the more open lace wavy pattern, similar to what I did for the blue and beige shawl (that still needs to be re-worked).  I figured the openness would take less yarn.
I had a couple of false starts, but finally got zipping along.  Once it was done, I weighed it and it was 45grams, with a small butterfly of the yarn left, weighing less than what my scale will weigh.  The length is good, can be wrapped once around the neck, or worn folded in half and the ends pulled through.  It did need a good steaming after it's wash!

 Bramwell 4ply, "Royal Dye 5021", 100% acrylic.  Singer 327 (standard gauge), T4 (I think).  Cast on 39 sts, knit 10 rows, hang hem.  Move needles 5 and 6 to their neighbours, all across, so its 4 needles in work, two empty (leave in A position).  Work the pattern so there are 5 threads between groups.  This time I made the edges straight by working the edge two groups, then working back the other way.  You can create the scallops on the edge by working the outer group by itself for however number of rows you want to form a little loop  (built in button loops on a cardigan?!).  Do it for the length you need/have and end with filling those empty needles by taking the heel of the neighbour stitches onto the empty needles, and knit 10 rows.  Hang hem, turn the tension looser by about 1.5, knit row to join, then cast off.  Steam well.

 Having got the scarf done, I felt it was time to do something for her boy.  He's a little outdoorsman so a reversible safety orange hat was in order.  This did require buying some yarn!  The first hat fits me with a bit of stretch left, so I made a smaller, shorter one.  I'll see if the big one fits my dad.

 Orange--Bernat Super Value, "Carrot", Camo--Bernat  Camouflage "Renegade".  Singer 155 (9mm).  Cast on 37-0-38, every other needle, T3, knit 4 rows.  Change row counter to 000 and fill some of the empty needles, T4, knit 4 rows.  Fill more empties, T6, knit two rows.  T 8, knit body to RC53 rows (I went a little more with the orange).  Switch to Camo and knit to about RC 96 and start taking needles out of work (doubling the stitch with it's neighbour).  Gradually decrease tension, so that by RC 106 you're down to T3 and about 1/2 the needles left in work.  I like to reduce it down even more over the next 4 rows--I find the hole closes easier.  Although the labels gave the same gauge, the camo knit up slightly looser.  These numbers are for the kids hat, for an adult, I just made it longer (I tried casting on 40-0-40 and it was quite large).

Yarn In:  10 566gr + 197gr + 142gr = 10 905gr

Yarn Out:  45gr (scarf) + 240 gr (two hats) = 285gr + 8900gr = 9185gr

Balance:  1720gr more In than Out

Costs:  $177.48 + $15.23 = $192.71/99 days = $1.95/day

I think that's a reasonable expense for a hobby that gives joy to me and my family, and even provides much needed items for other more needy folk!