The Hat that Turned into a Dog Sweater
So while I’ve been less than post-y lately, there have been a few little projects being snuck in between all of this job search madness. I am officially teaching 2nd grade starting tomorrow (covering an extended mat leave) and I’m happy to start being productive, teaching kids again, and reeling in a little cash for my family. The whole unemployed status sucks, and it was starting to get to me. Hopefully this position will keep me busy for awhile and there will be some other prospects on the horizon when it’s finished. We’ll see!
So I spoke of a few little projects, and the first of these is designing the invitations for my sister-in-law’s upcoming baby shower that I’m hosting. Well, hosting at my parents’ house. I’m delighted to have the honor of getting to throw her shower and I just didn’t like any of the pre-packaged baby shower invites out there. The obvious solution was to make my own. I went to Michaels and purchased a set of blank print-your-own cards to work with. The ones I chose come in sheets of two per page and are around 8.5″ x 5.5″; ideally meant as RSVP card inserts in a wedding invite but turned into fabulous baby shower invites instead. My inspiration came from a birthday card layout by Laurie’s Scraps and I designed the stitched car embellishment and tag for it myself. I may have to do a little mini kit to give away the car embellishment later. It was fun to make! Holly loves the invites and they were mailed out today. Here it is close up:
And now on to the topic project: the hat that turned into a dog sweater. I was feeling a little stressed out with all of the employment searching these past few weeks, and a little bummed when I applied to so many places and got so few calls back. Nothing seemed to be promising and I knew I just needed to knit a little something to keep me sane while waiting by the phone for decisions and callbacks. I thought that a plain vanilla newborn baby hat with a ribbed cuff would be the perfect simple, soothing knit. Except I didn’t gauge properly and somehow after doing the ribbing and starting the stockinette I realized that the hat would actually fit my head… not a good sign when the hat size is supposed to be sized for a brand new baby. *sigh* Jokingly I put the hat around our schnauzer, Winston’s neck, and suddenly the ribbing looked like the perfect turtleneck and the hat began to look more like a sweater. A schnauzer schweater, as I like to call it. So too-big baby hat has officially turned into a schnauzer schweater. Say it with me now, schnauzer schweater! This time with emphasis… SCHnauzer SCHweater! The real test is if you can say it five times fast. Ok I’m done, but it would be a great tongue twister, don’tcha think?
So I’m sorta making this pattern up as I go along — I cannot guarantee that it won’t turn into an epic failure but I’ll be sure to keep you posted, and if it turns out halfway decent maybe I’ll even post it here for all to try! Don’t hold your breath, though, little Winston looks less than enthusiastic about the prospect. I’ve decided that no matter how the schweater turns out, it’s at least exactly what I was looking for — something very plain and repetitive. I’ve been trying it on Winston as I go and while it works, I know if I did this again I’d make a few changes. All a part of the creative process, I think, and this process is fulfilling my needs at the moment.