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Home time.

We've been loving our home time. Oregon weather has been lovely and wild. Tea, mostly coffee, chocolate, and lots of record listening particularly Rocky Erickson, over and over.  There have been naps, kind of, and even venturing out into the wild because when you live up north you just have to leave the house sometimes.

Today, we are listening to opb on the radio and boy is it hitting the spot as the trees sway vigorously and the rain comes down in slants.

A pattern

I know I mentioned a while ago that I would write up a pattern for a little dress I made for Bea. I totally knitted a new and better one, I just haven't gotten around to writing it out completely as she really needed a fall hat. You see, the rain has started off and on and the evenings and mornings are chilly. Already, she is covered with knitted sweaters, shawls of mine, and now her hat and I'm really wondering how in the world we'll be able to put more on her as it really starts to get cold. This weather isn't even that cold, but you know that a wool lover waits and waits for this time of year to bundle up her babe in pretty stockinette and squishy garter stitches!

Oh baby stitches, you are loved! You are loved next to the rich red hawthorne berries and the rusty orange maples, the tall kale and the darker mornings.

Introducing Bea's Raindrop Hat,

Bea's Raindrop Hat
by little hand knits

Keep the littles warm

Yarn
Cascade Eco + (less than 200 yds) and three other colors of the same weight at about 1-2 yds in length
Gauge
4 st = 1 inch
Needles
16in size 8 circular
size 8 dpns
Notions
One stitch marker, tapestry needle

Abbreviations
CO: cast on
pm: place marker
k2tog: knit two together

Notes
*When knitting the three color work rows, be sure to carry your colors loosely, being careful to twist the yarn in the back consistently the same to keep rows from bunching and to keep the inside of the hat neat.
*When selecting your three color work colors, label them as colors one, two, and three.
*This hat was knit for an 8 month old with a pretty normal sized head. If the child you are knitting for has a bigger head, knit for an inch or more longer when knitting body of hat.

Pattern
With main color, CO 60 stitches, pm and join in a round. K in rib pattern (K1, P1) for 2 inches. K in stockinette until your hat measures 5 inches from the cast on row. Start color work rows as follows:

Row 1: starting with main color, alternate main color with color one
Row 2: starting with color two, alternate color two with main color
Row 3: starting with color three, alternate color three with color two
Knit two rows. Start decreasing as follows:

k2, k2tog and repeat until end of row
k row
k2, k2tog and repeat until end of row
k row
(switch to your dpns right around here or when stitches start stretching across circular needle)
k2tog all the way around
k row
k2tog all the way around until there is one stitch left.
Break yarn, leaving a tail. Thread tapestry needle and bring tail through last loop.
Weave in all ends.

Enjoy, you all!

Colorado

We just got back from Colorado where we visited with uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents, and most importantly Bea's great grandma Elaine. Bea crawled near great grandma as she laid under her pretty yellow sheets. Our squirmy eight month old landed on great grandma's legs every once in a while but Elaine didn't seem to mind. She grabbed her hands and played with her rings. Great grandma smiled for Bea. She played with her feet, told her she loved her reddish hair and let us just be with her. Her whole house was full of love. I felt it every time we stepped in and saw it on the pictures that hung on the walls and felt it on my knees as I played with the kids on the fuzzy carpet, the same carpet Kenny and his brothers played on. It was an emotional and difficult trip but a good one. I'm so glad Elaine has the care-giving family she does. I can't say it enough, there was a lot of love there, a whole heaping lot of love.