Preview of my New Knitted Winter Hats and Fingerless Gloves

I have been very busy lately, with my kids going back to school and the start of Etsy Ireland Mentor Month. So far this is going well as I am getting a lot of great advice, and by looking at my mentor's shop, it looks like she knows what she is talking about.

Since my last blog post I managed to knit a few items with the lovely King Cole Riot chunky yarn: 3 hats, 1 fingerless glove (I am finishing the second one this evening), and I am planning to use the leftover yarn for maybe another hat or each colour and some headbands.

I just love the feel and warmth of this yarn, pity I can't keep all of these for myself, hopefully they will find a good home!

Here is the picture I took this morning; I am waiting to have more finished before I can add them to my Etsy shop:

Loom Knitting

I always wanted to knit a hat, but I never had great results with single pointed needles so I tried using circular needles, which was an even greater disaster.

Then I discovered loom knitting: I never knew you could knit without needles, and I am glad I discovered this, as it makes everything so much simpler. I bought a pack of 4 circular looms and a beginners' book and I have been experimenting a little in my spare time, between work, kids, house chores and other knitting projects.

Here's a picture of my first loom knitted hat, which was originally made for myself but my youngest daughter was quick in stealing it from me (will I have to wait for them to move out before I can wear something I've knitted?):

The flower was made with the smallest loom (26 pegs); I found a very easy to follow video tutorial online for it and the hat was made using the second biggest loom (I used the first hat pattern from the book, which didn't feature the flower).

One thing I'm finding so far with loom knitting is that it works better with chunkier yarn; As I didn't have any, I used 2 strands of medium yarn (thanks, once again to The Art of Knitting).

At least someone in my house is going to be warm this spring!