Apologies for the long lag between posts, I was finding it hard to post from the Inner Hebrides and the business trip before and after I went. Oddly, when I used to write a travel blog, this was the easiest thing in the world. I met my husband on my blog. No joke! And I‘ve thought about resurrecting the site though having two blogs, if I struggle to keep up with one seems a bit silly. I’d love your feedback—separate or together?

I thought I was being so original—knitting a Wurm hat in Seattle sport team colors. But alas, I found no less than eight more Seahawks versions of the Wurm hat by Katharina Nopp on Ravelry.

This said, each one has its own uniqueness, including mine, which was started as a travel project because I thought my husband’s Blue Skye sweater was too much to pack on a recent business trip to Tuscaloosa, AL. In retrospect, it would have been better to bring it and return with it finished—I ended up having more time in the evenings and on the plane than expected—not to mention plenty of room in my bag despite being on the road for a week with only carryon luggage—a trick I’ll talk about in another blog post.

One of my favorite Seahawk Wurm’s is Early Robyns Get the Wurm by Traevynn which uses not only the green and blue, but a dose of white as well—just like the logo. AuntieDi did a Wurm which is literally the reverse of mine. Blue with green, instead of green with blue, out of local yarn manufacturer, Cascade Yarns’ 220 superwash.

My Wurm is a mix of boutique yarns—one local, one from San Francisco. The blue is a DK from Warm Valley Orchard on Orcas Island. The owners of WVO do everything from raise the sheep, shear, card, spin and dye the wool on island. It’s a bit itchy, but warm and the rich blue color is amazing. The green is the now sadly defunct Art Fiber’s sport weight Peruse, a soft baby alpaca. This softness is why I selected to have the green parts closest to the face and head.

What I loved about this pattern was learning to do a double headband. I’d heard about doing this for collars, but I’d never tried it, so doing it on a project like this one with leftover yarns took almost all the stress out of it. Though it did take a couple of tries to get it just right. Knitting it was fine, the problem was picking up the stitches from the edge. You have to align it perfectly or it looks weird.

After trying a failing twice, I finally took a contracting color, slipped them through all the “known” stitches and only took stitches that were on that string—no more no less. Got it perfectly right that time. Whew!

I’m still sewing my husband’s sweater together and next will be to pick up the collar. I started with that before the sleeve sewing, but ran into trouble. Now I think I have a technique from the hat which will make that go much better.

Forgive the quality of my photos. All of these were taken with my phone and many under very jittery conditions—mostly in flight on a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter pontoon plane. If I could afford it I’d always commute up with Kenmore Air.