playing hooky

Leave it to the unschoolers to play hooky on the first day of school. On this most gloriously perfect of days, we met up with some friends at our favorite swimming hole, armed with supplies for some water rocket experimentation that Jesse had planned, but mostly just soaking up the sunshine and playing in the sand and water. We had the place to ourselves for much of the time, which is exactly how we like it best.

I brought along the blocked Habitat hat that I finished on Sunday, as it was made as a gift for the dad in this family. He's going through chemotherapy now and nobody knows how much of his hair will be absent by the end of it all, but we're keenly aware of cold breezes on bald-ish heads around here ;-), so I figured a soft handknit hat was in order.

We've already discussed my problems with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn and my apparent inability to read a cable chart at times, but otherwise, this hat was a pleasure to knit. As was the case when I knit Jesse's Habitat hat, I made that 2-strand cable twist round and round, rather than one strand snaking over top of the other, simply because I like it better that way, but otherwise I made no mods to the pattern whatsoever. I think there are a couple of minor boo-boos on the chart in the version I have, but with a little common sense, those stitches were easily fudged.

After catching up on some of the work I should have been doing while I was playing hooky in the sunshine, I went out for a few quick errands and then I gave in to an urge that's been building up for a couple of months. I pulled out some crochet thread that I've had since I was a kid, chose a vintage hook from my stash, referred to Carol Ventura's amulet bag instructions, and tried my hand at tapestry crochet for the first time ever!

a different kind of playing hooky!
Back when I was a crochetaholic kid, I remember trying something similar to this, but I was crafting in a pre-Internet solitary bubble and never could get color changes to look right. However, my friends, with the help of the handy dandy Internet, I have since found the magic ticket, the solution to this longstanding mystery in my life!

Color changes should happen on the last yo of the stitch BEFORE the color change! I'm sure I discovered this little gem of a tip through Carol Ventura's site, but I'm linking now to a short video that I just found this morning, a quick demo of what I'm talking about.

I'm now one step closer to attempting a crocheted rug, inspired by Kite Weather and her beautiful work.

No doubt about it: a day of playing hooky feels mighty good, and most especially with the change of seasons. The geese have returned to the pond near us, so they go honking overhead a few times a day, and I pulled out my wool socks for the first time yesterday morning.

How goes the change of seasons in your corner of the world?