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Total Steps: 21,000
What I’m reading: The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans
What I’m working on: A hand knit hat.
Off to a great start getting my steps in for the New Year. After realizing that I was being awfully sluggish, I started trying to get more steps in during the fall. The cooler weather makes a huge difference in being able to walk a long time. During the last few months I was able to break 40,000 steps in a day a few times, and even hit a personal best at 50,000 steps in a day.
The park was as full as I have ever seen it. Crowds of people were on the trails. It was mostly families walking, and much fewer bicycles than usual. It forced me to walk slower and at first I didn’t go as far as I intended. Instead I broke it up into several smaller walks. Since it was nice weather and I was enjoying the book I was listening to (The Correspondent), I went out for another walk later in the day.
I realized the hat I was working on was too small. So I ripped it out and started over. At least the second time doing a pattern goes quicker. I know this, because every project gets ripped out and started over at least once. I started to question early on if it was too small, and spent too long trying to justify that it was fine. It wasn’t fine. I am using pure alpaca wool that I brought back from Peru. I got four small balls of the yarn at a discount in Lima, and it is roughly finished. I like the effect of the uneven yarn, but it sheds a lot and it is such a small amount that I wasn’t sure what to do with it. This hat will be a good use, and it makes the white yarn look nice.
I am using the Classic Ribbed Hat pattern available for free on the Purl Soho website. The pattern calls for using size 3 circular needles, which I didn’t have. Instead I used thicker yarn and my Size 4 ChiaoGoo circular needles. I truly love these knitting needles. I keep thinking about getting the interchangeable set, but so far I just have a piece meal collection of the sizes that I use the most. The difference between having needles that I am constantly fighting with, and needles that just work is enormous. I thought since I sized up the needles slightly I would need to use the smallest adult size for the pattern, but that turned out not to be true.
It feels good to be working on a knitting project again. I was churning out socks for a while, and then decided to dabble in color work. I don’t feel as comfortable with correcting mistakes in two strand color work, so I got derailed when I was making a pair of Halloween socks from Charming Colorwork Socks and basically put them down and have done almost no knitting in the past year.