FO and words

Eclose
(Entomology) (of an insect) emerge as an adult from the pupa or as a larva from the egg.
~Oxford Reference Online

I saw my first two squashed lady bugs on the sidewalk today. I guess they had already experienced eclosion - the first to eclose of spring? I have no idea if I'm using that right. Please correct me. Anyway, it was unnerving to see, since there is still snow on the ground in places, although it has been reaching 10 C over the last few days. I keep waiting for another blizzard.

On that note, I finished my last hat of winter, but it's way too warm to wear it.


My eyes are tightly closed because they are not yet used to bright sunlight! squint squint.

Flora, by Margaux Pena
This pattern is full of errors, but they aren't too bad, and they are well-documented on Ravelry. I couldn't resist the cute little leaves, and I would knit this again despite errors.

Yarn: inherited handspun that tends towards DK weight, undyed and dyed blue with food colouring.

Needles: 3.5 mm for the garter stitch band, and 4.0 mm for the rest.

Mods: After the colour pattern, I knit 2 rounds of stockinette before the decreases, rather than the 5 specified in the pattern. It's still a little big, but I like to pull my hats down to my eyebrows, so it's fine.



Turns out I'm terrible at photographing my own head. I took about 15 photos and didn't manage to get any centred shots. Whoops. I blocked it flat, rather than over a balloon or something spherical since I didn't have anything on hand, so there's a bit that's slightly bulgy. I hope it will come out with wear.

I was so frustrated when I dyed the yarn last year, since I was trying for a darker blue. I got two large skeins to be turquoise/blue and then (attempting) the same formula dyed another two that turned out completely different - blue/purple. Ah, dye lots to the extreme. So much for a sweater's worth of yarn! Anyway, I left the crapload of bluish yarn under my bed for months, since I was mad at it, but once I started knitting Flora, I fell in love with this yarn. It's much brighter than I had remembered it, and it's semisolid, and quite fun. So, good news after all.

Now. What else can I make with 800+ yards of various bluish scratchy DK handspun?!