Frozen Great Lake Hat.

So since Spring straight up refuses to come to Cleveland how about I finally post about my Frozen Great Lakes Hat?

The yarn is Destination Yarn Letter (my own handdyed) in the colorway Frozen Great Lake.  I've blogged about my inspiration for this colorway before but I can pretty much sum it up in this one of my dad's Lake Erie photographs:

Beautiful.  Although I am SO sick of our lake looking like that.  But it makes for pretty yarn:

And an even prettier hat:

It took one skein of yarn with a tiny bit left over.  My skeins are typical 100 gram skeins so that's alot of sockyarn for a hat.  Worth it, though:

The pattern is Ripple from Knit and Tonic.  I loved the pattern - hers are always well written - but I DO NOT love that you can't buy the PDF through Ravelry.  I have to actually keep track of where I save the file.  Boo to that.  However I love the whole Ripple concept used for a yarn based on water:

I was trying so hard to get a picture of me in the hat with the frozen lake in the background...

That didn't make me look like a crazy person.

It just makes sense to me.  I do like aligning patterns with yarn names, though.  It's kindof a thing.

The yarn matches the water!  Which ripples like the pattern!  I CAN'T HANDLE THE COORDINATION!

As far as where to acquire this lovely yarn - Destination Yarn the Etsy site has been shut down for awhile now.  I apologize for that.  But!  I'm currently dying towards Knitters Fantasy next weekend.  So if you're going to be there I'll have this and lots of other beautiful colorways with me.  Hopefully after next weekend I"ll get Etsy back in action.

Overall I'm really thrilled with this hat.  It's stylishly slouchy, the ripples break up the variegation in the yarn in a super pleasing way, and I tend to get compliments on it wherever I go.  A total knitting win!

Less of a win has been this weather.  Last year we were already going to the beach.  Seriously.  Monday I took the attitude of Fine.  If it's going to insist on snowing we're going to at least enjoy it:

 By Thurs. I was more of the attitude of I don't care if it's cold we WILL be outside:

They seem to be missing a crucial element... Except that they were pretending it was a boat so...

Today I gave up on spring and took them to the Cleveland Aquarium:



Our passes expire at the end of the month so I wanted to squeeze in one last visit.  Of course since it's Good Friday EVERYONE had off and EVERYONE was there.  It was crazy crowded.  And can I just... well... I hate to judge other parents but there was a couple there with 2 kids who were obviously older than both of mine blocking the way with a giant double stroller.  Um?  Really?  It's a small space with not much walking and your kids can't handle that?  Not to mention there are two parents - that's one for each kid.  But you need to contain them in a stroller?  And I get it... there are kids with special needs and sometimes that's not always apparent and you never know what a family is dealing with and you should NEVER judge because you just don't know and blah blah blah....

The Lion fish is not pleased with my judging.

Meanwhile I'm 7.5 months pregnant waddling through the place by myself with my 2 and no stroller of any kind.  And it was no big deal because SHOCK!  My kids actually listen to me.  A friend of mine told me that this third kid has pushed me over the edge and I no longer have any tolerance or patience for anyone else's nonsense.  I'm afraid that it's true.  Meh.