Close enough for Horseshoes

Outside of my generic socks (with and without waffle texture), I rarely make the same pattern twice. But I've knit the Horseshoe Handspun Hat from the Summer '10 Interweave 4 times now. It's such a fun pattern, and it knits up very quickly to lovely effect. Plus, it uses up scads of that worsted weight yarn that I've been spinning lately.

I knit this one with the leftover Ugly Pink/Green/Yellow yarn (which isn't so ugly knit up). Since it's my 4th Horseshoe Handspun, I varied the lace pattern a bit by flipping the second repeat. It's okay, but I won't be doing that again- there's not enough room for that sort of variation in the hat.

There's plenty of room for variation in the socks (you knew there would eventually be socks, right?), but I'm going with the straight 10 st/10 row repeat for these. I don't remember who dyed the yarn, but I got it in Snohomish in the summer of '09. It's a wool/bamboo blend and it's knitting up beautifully. Outside of adding the lace repeat to the mix, this is my usual fingering weight sock pattern (2.75 needles, 60 sts, 6" cuff, 30 st short row heel, 6" foot, star toe). 

I finished my flower kit from the rug hooking class that I took at NCFF. Tracy let me know that her etsy store is back up and running, and that she'll be adding more to it soon. I'm getting better at not crowding the loops, though my loop height is still iffy.

The back looks pretty good though. I haven't decided what to do with this (wall hanging? small pillow? little bag?), so I haven't finished it yet. I bought a good 12" hoop (boy, they don't give those suckers away), so I can start thinking about an original hooked design now (I might use handspun yarn- I have plenty of that on hand).

If you're thinking about trying rug hooking and can't take a class locally, I recommend Gene Shepherd's YouTube videos. This starter class gives a great grounding in the craft, and he has several others detailing specific techniques.