Some things I learned this past week

1. Although crochet is incredibly forgiving, if you use a wildly different yarn and hook size than your pattern calls for, your end product will not be right. The original pattern I was using for my dino hat called for some kind of cotton yarn and a size B hook, but I had a worsted weight yarn and an H hook. At some point along the way I put the thing on my head and it was WAY too big. I have a gigantic head, so I knew this would never work for a baby. So I frogged it, found a more appropriate pattern, and voila:

I think it turned out well!

I made it in the 6- to 12-month size. The baby I gave it to is a whopping 8 pounds at 2 months old, so he's got a while before he grows into it.

2. Knitting is just stupid and is nowhere near as forgiving as crochet. It turns out that you can go the wrong way around while you knit, even though you're still moving the needles from right to left. I thought once I was done with the ribbing I'd start to see some lovely smooth knitting, but instead what was appearing was ugly, bumpy purls. After consulting with my sister, we determined that the reason my knitting was showing the purl side was that I was holding all the needles to the front instead of the back. I remedied that, but where I turned the needles from front to back there was suddenly a large gap that would not close up, a phenomenon I still don't quite grasp. So I said some bad words, frogged it, and started all over again.

I apologize for the terrible photo quality. The giant hole and ugly purls should be apparent though.

Things are going better the second time around.

2(a). Sock yarn is blatantly made for knitters. If I were crocheting this sock the stripes wouldn't look nearly that nice. I really don't understand the anti-crochet bias in the craft world.

2(c). Knitting makes me tense. Crochet is relaxing.

3. This is a kick-ass brownie recipe that should be tried by all and sundry.