non-sock knitting!

First, I finished the fingerless mitts for my Dad:
I cast on the 2nd one Saturday morning and finished it up Sunday morning. Woo-hoo!

Then, I started a hat for "Caps for Kids" because that is part of our registration fee for Knitters' Day Out in September. I decided to use Caron Simply Soft yarn that I had in my stash and a pattern that I found on Ravelry. I believe it is called 3am hat:
It's actually a similar stitch pattern to the Irish Hiking scarf that I knit last year. It looks small in the picture, but it's pretty stretchy. I'm actually following the directions for a ladies' small hat, but I used US7 circulars instead of US8 since that's what I had. I'm sure it will fit some child's head! I'm planning on knitting 2 hats for Caps for Kids and the 2nd one will be striped since I have a lot of small amounts of Caron Simply Soft in different colors and I think they will look nice as a striped hat. I'm planning on using the no-pattern hat recipe in Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Knitting Rules book as a guideline.

I had a nice surprise in the mail today - I had won a prize on the Socks and More blog and it arrived today!! I received 2 skeins of Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Soy in Evening Blues (which is beautiful and so soft and I can't wait to try it!) and a pattern book called "Twelve Bags Fulled" by Terry L. Ross:
Close-up yarn shot because it's so pretty:
Panda Soy is 49% bamboo, 33% soy and 18% elastic nylon. My first impression is that it feels like a cross between Panda Cotton and Maizy - two of my favorite sock yarns! I may be starting another pair of socks sooner than I expected!

Thank you to Laura of Socks and More for this great prize!!