A BELATED XMAS PRESENT

After knitting on this day and night I finally got my son's hat done,

sadly,

3 days after Christmas.

So what to do for Xmas Day?

I wrapped it beautifully Christmas Eve with the knitting needles still in the rim.

When he opened the box Xmas morning his first reaction was what's this

because the springy needles popped right out of the box lid at him.

Hee hee 

But he was surprised and loved it!

Yay!!!

It also needed blocking and drying,

for another 3 days of work.

So off to the post office it will go on Monday morning to his home in the Valley,

just in time for his skiing adventure next weekend.

I received a really nice comment about the colors in this hat,

so I thought I'd show and talk about my process.

I first asked my son's wife what colors she thought he'd like. 

 She told me blue and some greens.

So I pulled this leftover multi blue-green ball from my stash.

Then I began looking deeply at it to see any other colors.

I noticed a rich dark brown, and those light shades of green.

And buried deeply was a tiny tad of burnt brick.

Do you see it in the photo above?

I also like to use different values when composing a project like this

 from a dark dark to a light light.

Then after I'm happy I take a pix

 and look at it in my gallery of photos on my phone.

That gives the illusion of depth as if I'm looking at the colors from far away.

I used to tell my students to squint at their color choices and designs

 from a distance.

It really helps to see balance, texture and value.

The pix above was actually the last one I shot.

There were 4 other color choices 

but seeing them all on my phone helped me to chose this one.

We continue to get more rain and snow

and the ground just keeps soaking it all up.

I believe we are officially out of our drought. 

Finally after so many years of water conservation.

Enjoy your new hat Zach,

hopefully for another 30 years.

And it's ok to ditch the old one.

LOL