Have nearly reached my charity goal

I have less than 10 to go to reach my guild challenge. (Machine Knitting Guild of Minnesota)  That is, we're knitting the number of items that we are years old.  I have about 57 items---booties, baby sweaters, scarves and hats.  It tends to get a bit repetative, especially the hats.  Here are two variations of toppers I did yesterday.  Trying something new, be it ever so small and simple, helps keep the mojo going.  When I finish, I'll estimate yardage and update my "Yards knit this year".

The first is a pom pom that was demo'd on the knititnow site, a free video.  Thought I'd try it.

You use a hand knitting ball winder and wind about 1/2 inch onto it.  Slip the wound circle off and immediately tie one side of the circle together with more than one strand for strength. ( Leave a long end which you will use to attach the pom pom to the hat, bringing the ends in and tacking to the seam on the inside.) Cinch as tight as you can. Then cut the opposite side.   Fluff it up.   They used lambs wool and felted it a little.  Mine is plain old acrylic.  I thought it was a clever use of the ball winder, but mine came out really huge.   And uneven.  I did a considerable amount of trimming and double tying to make sure it was stable.  I'll probably go back to my old, low-tech, reliable method of using two cardboard circles with a hole in the middle.  This one reminds me of the huge pom poms that were popular back in the 60s and 70's.  Kinda cute.

The other top uses three tassels.  They cover up the top hole nicely if you are having difficulty getting it to close enough.  I was using thin yarn, so doubled it, ewrapped 6 needles, knit 50 rows at T 7.  Bound off.  Made 3.  Have been using this method lately because it looks as nice as an I cord but knits up twice as fast.  Whatever tension you use, it rolls onto itself nicely.  Then I made tassels for the ends, tied the three tassel ends together at the other end and inserted it into the hole at the top of the hat.  I made sure it was tacked down securely in the inside.  If you don't like or want tassels, another cute thing is to hide your yarn end up into the curl and tie a knot at the end.

I'm using two strands of thin yarn, one teal and one light green.  Looks like I planned the stripes, but they just did what they wanted to do as far as one or the other being on the public side.  What an easy way to get some patterning in it.

The pattern, if you are interested is this:  standard machine, T6 for cuff, T7 for rest of the hat. Two strands of thin yarn, one run through each eyelet of the yarn mast.  130, 140, or 150 stitches for baby, child, or adult.  Do a quick cast on with waste yarn and ravel cord.  With main yarn,  don't cast on but knit right over the ravel cord.  Knit twice the length you want for the cuff.  I did 60 rows.  Hang a hem and change the tension to the larger number.  Knit about 70-80 more rows. (I usually do 7 inches for baby, 8 for child and 9 for older child or adult.) CAR. Transfer two stitches over two spaces with a two prong transfer tool.  Put emptied needles out of work.  Knit two rows, take off on double eyed transfer tool with enough length to also sew the side seam. Once removed from the machine,  cinch the hole up as tight as you can.  Remove waste yarn. Seam up the side and add the topping.  I've done a lot of hats but this is the easiest, fastest and best looking of the bunch.  If the hat seems too long or slouchy, the cuff can be turned up for extra warmth around the ears.  Fortunately I don't have to fiddle with size too much because the charity matches sizes with the coats they give out. 

I like to knit up a few and then sit and watch FRINGE on Netflix to seam and finish them up.  It's my current addiction.  Weird and sci fy-ish.  Hope you can make some stuff for charity too.  Winter is inevitable and the need seems endless.