Mini woolly hat with pom-pom

Not really the season anymore I know, but I'm gradually learning more knitting skills... This helped me practice the purl stitch, and learn decreases (knit 2 together and purl 2 together... which do what they say on the tin).

The pom-pom - which turned out super duper fluffy if I may say so myself - I knew how to make from kids camps years ago. Basically you only need a bit of cardboard, yarn and a needle (no need for a pom-pom maker!).

You can find a tutorial here (I didn't bother measuring the circles, I just eyeballed it).

So why a mini hat? Well there's this campaign every year where they put mini woolly hats on smoothie bottles and give a fraction of the profits to charity (original UK version here).

Here are two from smoothies I bought in January:

I really like the red one. The cream one kinda looks more like a condom, but hey it's possible that it was the idea...

Anyway, I thought it was kinda cool, and since they've published knitting patterns for people to make them, I thought I'd try my hand at the beginners' one:)

If someone else fancies giving it a try, it's the first one on this page (that one's in French, though you can find a pretty similar one on the UK website).

I'm really hoping they run the same campaign again this autumn, so I can send it in... And it'd be really cool to spot it on a smoothie on the shelves;)

I can haz purl stitch!

I've started teaching myself to knit a good two years ago, in which time I've made... hmm... three scarves.

Even less impressive is that I never managed to get my head around the purl stitch... Until recently that is...

I Hereby Proudly Present My First Successful Attempt at Purl Stitch:

The idea behind this was to make a scarf that wouldn't "grow" too much, as my first scarf (that I still wear all the time) is now a good bit longer than it was originally (I could wrap it twice around my neck, now after 3 times it's still a bit loose). My mum said it's normal with garter stitch...

It's long enough to almost touch the floor when hung from a bar stool!

The thing is, stockinette stitch has another problem: it curls up on itself!

So I still ended up frogging (= unraveling) it and starting again in garter stitch. Ah well...

At some point I'll master more stitches;)

My first scarf

 Apparently my knitting attempts weren't that hopeless... I made a cowl scarf!!!

I used this tutorial from Knit and Bake as the "Super Easy Beginner Knitting Cowl " title sounded right up my alley (thanks by the way, miss Knit and Bake!).

Of course, my knitting wasn't that regular, so I had to block it (aka pin it in place, put a kitchen towel on top and steam the heck out of it) :

But it turned out great, and I'm very proud of it:)

I also knitted one (in the round!) for my mom, but forgot to take a picture before giving it to her...

Teaching myself to knit!

Since I haven't been able to sew for a while (can't sit at the machine), I've been trying to teach myself knitting! It's something I can do lying down! Although it can get hard on the arms after a while...
I registered on Kollabora (an online DIY community) and found a few helpful videos there.
My first attempts aren't that glorious:

Casting on, so tight it curls on itself:

Knit stitches, with a few holes and extra stitches created out of thin air (started with 20 stitches and somehow that turned into 32 along the way!):

But I'm gradually getting the hang of it, at least I hope so;)