WARNING: This Post is Freakin' Adorable

My name is Kaylin, and I....am obsessed with a knitting pattern.

Not just any knitting pattern. I'm obsessed with a superawesomebabyhat called Aviatrix. "Aviatrix" technically refers to a female aviator but this hat was made for a little boy. I doubt he'll care.

Sorry, no baby available to model it.

It's the kind of pattern that makes me wish everyone I knew had a baby so I could make them this hat. As the blog title suggests, it's freakin' adorable.

All the shaping is done with short rows. It's only the second project I've done with short rows (the first being Calorimetry) and I found them to be completely addictive. The combination of engaging knitting techniques and cuteness led to spontaneous giggling bouts last night. Seriously. Ask my roommate.

I knitted like a women possessed.

The knitting completely took over my evening, rendering my desk even messier than usual.

Look at all that knitting paraphernalia.

I think my to-do list is under there somewhere.

As if this project needed any more reasons to be awesome, I knit it entirely out of Ultra Alpaca scraps (I knew there was a reason I always buy the same few colors).

Sadly I'll have to wait until it makes its way to my friend Emily's nephew to see if it lives up to its cuteness potential. This hat might be the cutest thing I've ever knit. And that's really saying something when you consider this little number I knit for Emily's other nephew last winter.

I warned you this post was freakin' adorable.

Stats and Hats

If you don't run a blog, you probably don't know that all sorts of interesting information becomes available to the author once a reader clicks on the page. Well, things I find interesting. Like how people often navigate to the site and the total amount of page views. For example, one person typed "I got short haircut" into google and checked out blog. Seriously. They must have extensively sifted through the search results because when I replicated the search, I didn't see a SnB link anywhere on the first five pages.

The stats page also informs me that the blog has been viewed over 1500 times! Even when you take into consideration the fact that half of those page views are probably my own, that's still a lot of traffic. (I recently changed the settings to ignore my visits. The number of views per day had decreased dramatically.)

There is also a large world map that indicates the country of origin for each visitor. For a long time the map was boring. The U.S. was a bright green but every other country was beige. Yawn.

Then, a few weeks ago, something exciting happened. Sweden turned the palest shade of green. I had to consult with a nearby friend to ensure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. Indeed they were not. Since then, more and more countries have registered page views. Thirteen from Canada. Five from Ireland. Three from the U.K, Russia, and Slovenia. Let's not forget the single views from computers in Albania and Belgium.

Goal: Expand Readership to the Southern Hemisphere

So what if the amount of international views are negligible when compared to the total amount of views? Or that the single page views from some countries indicate that the reader never returned to the blog. Or that it's likely that many people may have navigated to the page by accident. Ignore all those things and consider this instead: Truman Stitch 'n Bitch has gone global.

Please feel free to take a moment to collect yourself. I'm sure you felt the need to high-five random passersby when you read that.

Okay, now on to the actual knitting. Last night's meeting was a bit smaller than in the past few weeks. Even with fewer knitters and crocheters (okay, there were no crocheters this week- didn't they read all that nice stuff I said?) the meeting was still awesome.

There was a considerable amount of headwear in progress.

Chelsea cast-on for her Calorimetry.

Anna continued work on her first colorwork project.

Katherine showed off a newly completed hat.

I love it. The reason why is best decribed by the Venn diagram below. Here you can see how Katherine's hat (indicated by the gold star) meets at the sweet spot of two of my great loves.

Teaser: during the meeting Katherine was working on a special knitting project for an avid blog reader. That's all I'll say about that.

I also happen to be working on a special knitting project for an avid blog reader. I have no problem spilling my own beans, so here are a few shots of the fingerless mitts currently in progress.

If you're a thespian currently residing in Columbia, Mo, these might be for you.

Madeline brought proof that she's been keeping up with her sock of the month club. I think she might even be ahead of schedule at this point.

Yes, those are two-at-a-time-toe-up socks. How observant of you!

I found time to gift a pair of Give a Hoot mittens earlier this week. It only took me three months to deliver on my knitwear promise. I'm proud of myself!

I'm going to leave you with something delightful this week.

I was told it was a "scarf hat" from Norway. Genius. It appeared to be machine knit, but I think it will serve as inspiration for a project involving all of my scrap sock yarn.