What I'm up to

Well, I'm in Germany. There's something strange about coming home for the first time after 6 years, an odd mix of familiarity and change. Since my last visit, I have finished 2 graduate programs, I've gotten engaged and married, and I've held 2 different jobs. I've taken up knitting again, this time in a serious way, and I've moved from one state in the US to another. Yet when I come into my room, I see how it hasn't changed since my last visit, how it hasn't really changed since I graduated high school over 10 years ago. The room is still the same, but I am a different person. It's like visiting the past.
Then there are the changes. Stores I remember are no longer open and others have opened in the same spots, familiar to everyone else, but new to me. Some of my friends are still here, but some have moved away. I used to be a big part of the fabric of their lives, and they of mine. Now, I'm just stopping by, barely related lives touching for a moment before we go our separate ways again. It's nice to see them again, but it also makes me feel like oil floating on water, almost like a ghost haunting what used to be my old life. Melodramatic, but it's a fitting description.

My husband is coming over in a little over a week. Then, we'll take a trip to Cologne and look at some of the local sights. I'll take him to the castle where Luther hid out and wrote his translation of the Bible, then we'll look at some other castles, Ephraim Lessing's house, and the library at Wolfenbüttel. It'll be fun.

In knitting news, I'm knitting my dad's sweater, my sister has picked out some sock yarn, and I've bought yarn for Clessidra. I've been ogling these socks ever since the new knitty came out and now, I have what I need to make them.

See you in a while!

Well, it's almost time to go to the airport. Must finish packing because I'm leaving in about an hour. If I get a chance, I'll say hello from Germany and let you know how my yarn shopping is going!

So-Called Hat

And here is another installment in Unexpected Knitting Series. I wasn't planning on knitting My So-Called Scarf. It wasn't on my to knit list, and that list is so long, I expected to be knitting nothing besides list items for a long time. Then I went to the going out of business sale at A Stitch Above in Providence and fell in love with some skeins of Manos.
My So-Called Scarf turned out to be the perfect pattern for my new yarn, and I enjoyed knitting it so much that I wanted to make a matching hat. This is the pattern I found (moonfrog is just a really cool name for a blog too!), and here is the hat with a few minor modifications:


A closeup of the hat on my head:


Pattern Notes:
Pattern: My Herringbone Hat for My So-Called Scarf by Rebecca (see link to her blog above)
Yarn: Manos Del Uruguay in Mulled Wine, less than 1 skein
Needles: US 10 (I think I'm becoming a loose knitter)
Modifications: I made the hat a bit shorter so it covers only part of my ears. I only knit 5" before beginning the decreases and left out the second knit row after the second decrease. Otherwise, everything is knit as written.

In other news: I was going to flash my stash, but as I'm leaving for Germany on Tuesday, I don't want to have to put everything back and reorganize it. Maybe next year. This year, I'm packing part of my stash for its trip overseas and leaving the rest safe in its containers, to await my return and subsequent attempt to knit from stash and nothing else.

Yeah, like I'm not going to buy souvenir yarn in Germany...