Off of my feet and knitting

I had foot surgery earlier in the week for a Morton's neuroma. It's a painful growth of nerve tissue that often occurs between the 3rd and 4th toes. I tried wider shoes, then orthotics, but it was not going to go away on its own and my options were cortisone shots, which wear off, or surgery.

Since I had to sit with my foot up, it was a perfect opportunity to knit. Yay for knitting! Last month in my knitting guild group I learned how to do the Norwegian purl, which is a continental style of purl stitch, and I really liked it. When I learned to knit I learned left-handed English style but I've been wanting to change to left-handed continental style. Now seemed like a perfect time to do it. I decided the perfect project for this was some ribbed hats for my "Hats for the Homeless" project.

 Last year I asked some knitting friends to help me make some simple hats that I could send to the Southwest Chicago PADS organization, which my in-laws are involved with. I chose the Pro Bono hat  by Angelina Fagan (instructions are here) because it's a simple 2x2 rib and it uses thick yarn so it knits up quickly. Last year I made and collected about 15 or so hats and this year I hope to make and collect more.

This week I knitted up two hats and am almost finished with a third. The pattern turned out to be a perfect project for learning a new way of knitting because I was able to practice both knit and purl in continental. I used some worsted weight yarn (doubled) that my in-laws sent me. I'm not sure where they got it but it was probably from an estate sale, thrift shop or was destined for the trash. I suspect it was someone's old fair isle project since there were numerous hanks of wool in 5-6 different colors. Judging from the tags on some of the skeins, I think the yarn was from the 70's. No bugs on it, but I had to wash some of it and some had to be discarded due to staining that wouldn't wash out. But I'm glad I was able to salvage it and repurpose it for these hats.