I'm a slacker

Ok, folks. I am a slacker. Not a knitting slacker, mind you. I have been going fast and furious on that one. But for some reason, I forgot to blog last week. Please forgive me. I have been trying to do it once a week. Usually when my husband works in the evening, so then I am not distracted. But then this week he hasn't had to work. So now I have had to all this other nonsense. And then I started what seemed like a sweet, small, adorable felting project. And it has become a giant, all-consuming, time-sucking monster!
I am not going to tell you what the project is because I wanted to wait until it is assembled in its entirety and posted on my ravelry page, but it seemed so adorable. I consider myself a pretty proficient knitter, felter, and seamstress. I reviewed the pattern, and it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I even had plenty of the required yarn in my stash. I lulled myself into believing that I could make several projects in several colors for my friends.
What was supposed to take 2 days max is going on 2 weeks. First it is taking 3 cycles to felt instead of 1. Yes, I do have a top-loading washer. Then the pattern was too big. Then there was a hole. Then the yarn didn't felt the way I planned. Aargh! So I am trying something new. Hopefully I will have pictures in another week.
But onto what I have accomplished. I finished a shawl collared cowl, a pattern from Alana Dakos from Never Not Knitting. It's easy and lovely. I think it turned out great. I would really reccomend buying this pattern. I used Cadena from Knit Picks in the colorway Peat. It is a nice alpaca blend. It keeps me toasty and I picked out some faux-crochet buttons from WalMart. That is really my only option here if I don't want to order from the internet.

And then I also did the all day beret in bamboo ewe from Stitch Nation by Debbie Stoller. It is kind of a blue-green-grey. I made the beret bigger because the pattern called for a 21" circumference, and my head is a ginormous 22.5", but it is still loose. It is supposed to be slouchy, but I am nervous that it will fall off of my head all day. So I think that I am going to run a elastic thread through it for peace of mind. I will attach pics. I did enjoy how the beret looked from the back, though. Let me know what you think! Have an awesome winter!