Ripping progress

This is what happened to the official casting on of the secret shawl. It was ripped and wound up. I cast on 98 ish stitches over 200 needles, which used the whole length of the knitting machine ( I really should name it ). Chris was getting neck and back strain and more importantly, the knitting was getting all snarled up and I had to keep picking up dropped stitches. I was feeling pretty down about it and on Sunday I fetched the remaining 6 balls for the husband's scarf. Chris was wondering whether we could give the present to them as a do it yourself kit.

We decided to work the shawl in two separate pieces as the centre section of the machine seemed to work a lot better.

In the meantime, I cast on some handknitting! I fancied a break from the leaves and saw a cute star hat pattern for free on I'm Knitting As Fast As I Can. I started it on Saturday with the blue cotton/acrylic from Berlin.




I am very pleased except for the big hole in the centre. I'm not sure if that was due to my cast on technique. I'll try to weave the end in in a star type shape. I made a hat for my mum once, with a hole in the middle, and her hair stuck through it in a tuft. I wouldn't want that for the new nephew, especially as my mum' s hat ended up on the snowman and then I claimed it back. Maybe I'll show you a picture of it one day.