Snow!

On Friday morning, around the same time as I got my lost hat back, it started to snow. It doesn’t snow very often in London, and when it does snow, it very rarely settles, so the inch or so of cold white stuff covering our garden this weekend has actually been quite exciting, especially for the boys.

All four of us ventured out into the park on Saturday morning, which provided a great opportunity to take some pictures, not only of the boys enjoying the snow, but also of Ed wearing the hat and gloves I made him for Christmas (I’m sorry to say that I didn’t make the amazing jumper. I really wish I had).

The hat is a Chunkeanie, a wonderful (and also free) Wooly Wormhead pattern, knit in the biggest size, as Ed, like me, has a rather large head (I pity our poor children). The original design is knit in reverse stocking stitch, which involves an awful lot of purling. I did think about knitting every row and then just turning it inside out at the end, but I didn’t. Not sure why. I did, however, once I’d finished it, sew in the ends really neatly (this was a bit of a struggle) so that the hat is completely reversible.

The mittens are an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern from The Opinionated Knitter. It’s one of those clever patterns where you can knit a child’s, woman’s, or man’s mitten simply by using a different weight of yarn. For the man’s version you need a gauge of 4 stitches per inch, which I managed with the chunky Twilley’s of Stamford Freedom Wool on 6mm needles. The gloves are very thick, but, I assume, very warm. The hat is definitely very warm as I borrowed it last week when I lost mine.

Both patterns were super quick to knit and cost me nothing as I unravelled the wooly trousers I knit James last year:

I figured that grey was a nice sensible colour that Ed could wear to work on chilly winter mornings. He has worn the gloves, but apparently he can’t wear the hat as it might mess up his hair. Oh dear.