If you want to get ahead get a hat!

As a sock knitter with feet in the medium size range (a UK6/EU39) who does not knit socks with particularly long cuffs (usually in the 60 rounds plus ribbing region) I generally find myself with leftover sock yarn. Even the socks I knit for my large footed husband had some leftovers, not as much as a pair for me would have but certainly some. These little ends of sock yarn are then wound into balls and shoved (rather unceremoniously) into a ziplock bag which gets thrown in with the rest of my sock stash. I have knit 12 pairs of socks now (well one is almost a pair, I have leftovers from the ball used to knit the first sock!) as well as knitting other things using sock yarn so I have quite a little stash of leftovers.

Now I know a lot of people use these leftovers to knit sock yarn blankets and that's a great way of using them up. A lovely blanket made of soft, brightly coloured sock yarn does appeal to me, absolutely. Knitting a blanket in 4ply from leftovers as and when I get them does not appeal to me. I do love the process of knitting but I'll not lie, I also love the results. I want something to show for my work and with a sock yarn blanket there's a LOT of work before there's any show. I don't see myself ever really getting anywhere with one.

Instead I have another use for my little odds and ends of sock yarn, a use I'd say is just as valid and is a lot quicker than attempting to knit it all into a blanket. I am instead working on little hats to go on smoothie bottles for Innocent's Big Knit 2010. I started yesterday evening whilst watching TV and have already knit three hats and started a fourth. They are a prefect way to use up scraps of yarn and my odds and ends of self-striping sock yarn makes stripey hats with no added effort from me! In November these hats (and many thousands of others) will be put on the tops of bottles of Innocent Smoothies and 25p from each bottle sold will go to Age UK. You can read about the fundraising here.

Some people make very extravagent hats in all sorts of shapes with characters on top and such. Whilst I may make a few that are a bit fancier (like the beret type one here) I will mostly be knitting the plain hats then making some sort of tassles or bobbles to go on top as this means I have time to make more of them.

I am continuing my work on my green shawl and on my top secret swap gift but both of these require a lot of attention from me so the hats will fill in as perfect no attention required TV knitting AND they can help make some money for charity, a winner all round I'd say. I hope to make at least £5 worth of hats but really would like to aim for £10 worth of hats. I shall keep up to date with my progress.

In sad and non-knitting news Mr.Lambanana's grandfather died last Friday and we'll be travelling for the funeral later this week so it's possible (though not definite) that there wont be any more blogging until next week.