Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Rivendell among the rocks

Mountain Man I drove out to "Looner Land" this past Sunday for a stunningly beautiful day of rock climbing. It's an an amazing place, with clusters of rock pinnacles rising out of the desert floor. Here's me, rappelling off of our last climb in the late afternoon sun.


I thought such an unworldly landscape would be the perfect place to photograph my newest project: a Rivendell hat in a heavenly-soft alpaca. I also thought that it would be much chillier (like it was last weekend), but as you can see it was sunburn weather, not alpaca hat weather. Not that I'm complaining, though!


Knitting this hat was like visiting an old friend. Rivendell was the first pattern that I ever published. It came out in Magknits in May 2007, and when Magknits was abruptly taken down, the pattern went with it. I still have the pattern text, but no charts or diagrams or pretty formatting, and anyways the pattern needed some tweaking with gauge and sizing, since the original version was far too small and tight.

It's taken me a couple of years, but I've finally gotten myself around to re-knitting the hat and rewriting the pattern. This was a play on it to see how it would look with a different brim and a softer texture. I'm also working on a version that has the original flared seed-stitch brim, but I'm having some gauge issues. Hopefully it won't take me another two years :)

6 comments:

kathy b said...

AHHHHHHH! No more scary images of you repelling off big rocks. You are so brave. I love the hat and am so glad you found a way to ressurect it. My goodness your hair is getting long...gorgeous

Aidan said...

I really love the pattern of this hat and I want one for myself! So if you need any public encouragement to get it done and out there...pleeeeeeeeeeeeez make the pattern available some time soon!

Lovely silhouette off the rock!

Rachel said...

Ah, that looks like a great climb. Love the picture! And glad to see reworking the hat pattern is going well...it's a really cool hat!

Zanna said...

I love that hat! What a beautiful day you had.

Unknown said...

Gorgeous climb!
Beautiful hat!

Shelly said...

I would be thrilled to see it available again! I fell in love with the pattern not long after I started knitting, about 6 months after Magknits disappeared...