Hat day

I have a thing for hats; I buy some and make a hell of a lot more. This year all the kids liked the Noro hat by Saartje de Bruijn and asked me to make them each one. I finally finished Morgan's last week and asked our friend Mel to take some pictures of them. Her partner Angela is in the background making sure we're all "even".





Then I got Morgan to model MY finished Nehalem (pattern by Oat Couture). I used the worsted weight Beaverslide Dry Goods yarn I got a few weeks ago. It has a fabulous octagon in the back in addition to the lovely cable on the band. Unfortunately my dear son has the hat on backwards and some of the lovely cable band isn't so lovely in the back. I used a provisional cast on to eliminate the seam, but the pattern isn't quite right and it bugs me. Wouldn't bother me at all if it were in the back.





After the photo shoot we went to two local cemeteries for fun. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, William Hooper is buried here in Hillsborough. Some of the gravestones are almost worn completely smooth and they have plaques asking people not to do rubbings. I think the earliest gravestone we found was 1806. Several markers for men that were in the Civil War too. Here's a tribute I was surprised by -



I didn't think he would have been allowed to serve on the Supreme Court of NC after being a Colonel in the Confederate Army. May have to google him to find out "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to say.

Hillsborough Handmade Parade: Nesting

Hillsborough Handmade Parade: Nesting
Originally uploaded by Oberazzi

The cutest woodpeckers EVER.

Catching up

Dead silence in blog land lately, but there's been a fair amount of action in reality. Last weekend was the first annual Hillsborough Handmade Parade with the theme The Eno and her Creatures. Hillsborough loves a parade and typically has a good turn out for such events. This one is sponsored by the Hillsborough Arts Council and had some workshops offered by Paperhand Puppet Intervention. We have some friends that were planning on participating and I thought it would be small and cute, but had no idea the turnout would be so fantastic! The costumes, the community band (I didn't know we had one), the drums, the crowds - awesome! I brought along the camera, but the battery died after only three pictures and I didn't bring any back-up. So lame of me. At soccer that very morning, we starting talking telling another Hillsborough resident about our day's plan and she offered to bring The Original Dragon from the very first Eno River Festival and needed eight people to make it go. Here's the result



Lewis was very patient with my attempts at picture taking and the result was still rather fuzzy. Sorry.



And the last picture before the battery died was of a dragonfly. It was stunning and was created by Michael Brown, Mark Donley, Tinka Jordy and Jennifer Miller for the Hillsborough Arts Council.



My very favorite costume was a small flock of red-headed woodpeckers; one complete with a nest. So cute.

Today I've finished another hat and am going to work on my Through The Loops Mystery Sock. I forgot to go up in needle size after the cuff and the cables have made sock #1 too small to fit. I'm almost finished with the third clue for sock #2 and then I shall go back and rip out all the beautiful cable bits back to the cuff and try and finish by Wednesday. Tomorrow there are plans for a family photo shoot (with knitting) and some knitted bits on their own.

The leaves are starting to turn and soccer was cold this morning. I'm getting in the mood for winter - bring on the wool!