A little while back I ordered 1 ball of Knit Picks Chroma Fingering in colorway “Mix Tape” so I could play with it and see how the long color changes would look. Since I wanted to try using a fingering weight yarn with my Slightly Slouchy crochet hat pattern, I picked up a size E hook and got started. I did wind up unraveling the beginning, snipping off the first color, and then starting again – because no matter what, a big pink circle at the top of a hat is going to make someone think of…something other than a hat.
The colors are wonderful, aren’t they? I like the way the hot brights are balanced out by the dark grey.
This is part of my getting a jump on the winter holidays project list. The Slightly Slouchy Hat has been teen-approved – the Firefly stripes version was made ‘specially for a smart, sarcastic teen who enjoys the added obnoxiousness potential of having the colors of a Lampyridae backside involved. Your mileage may vary.
Pattern: Slightly Slouchy Hat (free! – in US/Canada and UK/Antipodes versions)
Yarn: Knit Picks, Chroma Fingering Sock Yarn, colorway Mix Tape
Last weekend, I had a lot on my mind (Fresh Designs Crochet stuff, mostly) and three skeins of Twisted Fiber Arts Playful in three different versions of the Firefly colorway. I sat down, wound up two of the skeins, picked up a crochet hook, smoothed out my thoughts and ended up with two hats. Made a little longer and then gathered in back with a crocheted cord, so that the amount of slouch can be adjusted to the wearers taste (or the cord can be taken out and the brim folded up, or pulled down over ears and back of neck). I plan to make a few more of these this summer to have handy for winter gift-giving.
The Slightly Slouchy Hat crochet pattern is free and available in both US/Canada terminology and UK/Australia/New Zealand terminology (both PDFs are included; check the top right corner of the page to be sure you are using the version with the terminology you prefer). Sizes XS (child) to XL.
Twisted Fiber Arts Playful Self-Striping yarn (with long-repeat option), colorway Firefly
Twisted Fiber Arts Playful Self-Striping yarn (with long-repeat option), colorway Firefly
Twisted Fiber Arts Playful Evolution yarn, colorway Firefly
Twisted Fiber Arts Playful Evolution yarn, colorway Firefly
download now
Pattern: Basic Crochet Baby Beanie with some alterations for thinner yarn (smaller hook, additional rounds)
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Cotton, organic colors Birch 30, Clay 31, and Skinny Dyed 310 Coffee. I had one skein of each and I am thinking there may be enough left over to make a second hat, but I might have to change the stripe pattern on the sides to include the Birch 30.
Hook: E/3.5 mm
This was whipped up quickly as a gift for friends expecting their first child (and one of them made a beautiful patchwork baby blanket for me to gift to another friend), so I didn’t take detailed notes while I was doing this; I wanted to get it done and wrapped and delivered without delay.
Ears were worked in as part of a round, into the front loop only as (chain 4, 4 dc into next st, chain 4, slip st into next st), slip stitched in the front loop only to the next ear (worked as the first), then back to hdc into ea st. On the following round the hdcs were worked into the back loop from ear to ear. This does make that section a little tighter and the ears could just as easily be added on afterwards. Eye and mouth details were embroidered on afterwards.
I was calling this a bear, but it’s really unclear and sort of oddly generally animal-ish. I showed a photo around at an Aloha Knitters meeting, just asking those present to tell me what animal they thought it was. Answers included hedgehog, agouti, otter, dog, rabbit, and woodchuck, so hey, it’s whatever you want it to be! What I like best about this hat is that the wee face on the top has ears, and from the side, the baby wearing it has ears too. Aww!
Most of what I’m doing with this blog and website is currently happening in the form of updating links, re-loading images, and otherwise continuing the smaller bits of the transition from the old blog to this one. It takes quite a bit of time, but as it’s been really hot here lately and I’ve been doing a lot of shovel-monkey work for the archaeology firm lately, there hasn’t been much knit or crochet action so I don’t mind.
I’ve also done a revision to the free Top Down Ribbed Beanie knit recipe, as I will be licensing the Good Karma Spinning Co. to offer it as a promo item with their yarns. The worsted weight alpaca/wool blend is springy, soft, and delightful, and the Yarn Randomness dk/heavy sock weight alpaca/wool blend would, I think, make a great extra-long beanie to scrunch up.
available as a free PDF download through Ravelry.com
I’m not done tinkering with it yet – for starters, I’ll be replacing the single photo on the cover with multiple views, and I’m considering adding a chart for the crown section. Mostly I wanted to have a cleaner looking layout, and I have been wanting to upgrade the free patterns so that they are all available as PDF downloads that are representative of what can be expected from the patterns for sale.
Springtime Baby Beanie (no flowers)
For a the newly arrived baby of longtime friends, I chose to purchase handmade items as gifts so that I’d have things ready to send before the child entered kindergarden. Crocheting a simple beanie felt attainable to me, though, so I chose some Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton from my stash (I’ve been wanting to use this Pickle Green for a while now) and did a simple striping with Lemongrass Yellow and Shell Pink. Cute, right?
Well, the color changes for the stripes weren’t completely even. I wasn’t going to rip back and redo them, so I figured I could just do a quick flower and cover it up.
Springtime Baby Beanie (1 flower)
Aww. Might redo the embroidery in the center, though.
It was getting late, but I had an idea about other flowers I could make, so I stayed up to crochet “just one more.”
Springtime Baby Beanie (3 flowers)
Okay, two more. And I think I need to do more to the one on the right.
Pattern: Basic Crochet Baby Beanie (it’s free, and you can use it to make and sell as many finished items as you like). I haven’t worked up full instructions for the flowers yet; I’ve been thinking about doing a for-sale pattern set of multiple sizes in different yarn weights and might chart up the flowers for that set. I’m also thinking about formatting the free version as a downloadable PDF for Ravelry.
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton. Pickle Green (body), Lemongrass Yellow (stripes) and Shell Pink (stripe). kpixie.com has it on sale as of this writing.
Currently listed in my Etsy shop: Handspun Hat, $35
Yarn: Jenny Neutron Star, handspun wool plied with metallic gold, "Sweet Flesh"
You can see the metallic gold rick-rack plied with the wool in this picture.
Top-Down Ribbed Beanie Recipe
US 11 and 10 needles
Jenny Neutron Star handspun, "Candy", about 80 yards
This time it’s really finished – I ripped back a few rounds, then switched to US 10 needles and did 2 rounds of stockinette and bound it off. I like it better now, although I do feel like the hat is asking for more. Some buttons, maybe? A few crochet circles? I may have to just set it aside and walk away. It’s already quite exuberant.
About the yarn – the jennyneutronstar.com site won’t load for me, and the Jenny Neutron Star Etsy shop hasn’t had any activity for over a year. Back when I first got this yarn, quirky handspun yarn wasn’t as readily available. When I was asked to put together a few kits for the Alt Fiber show, I didn’t have much time and I really wanted to feature indie crafters. Jenny Neutron Star really came through for me and custom-spun 3 skeins to order (although I botched the wpi – this is really more like 5-6 wpi yarn, and it’s my misstatement, not hers). 2 years later, nifty handspun/handdyed yarns are thriving on Etsy, and so while I can’t find a way to direct you to Jenny Neutron Star right now, I do have a couple of Etsy favorite sellers for bulky thick/thin yarns: Terra Bella Spun does handspun/handdyed, which I’ve used to knit up similar hats. Miss Hawklet has some "scraptacular" yarns up right now that I find especially delightful, and I used some Midnight & Lulu yarn in the Springtime Scarflette I did last year. Typing "handspun yarn" into the Etsy search feature will get you pages and pages of delightful stuff! I know I have to be careful when I do that. For the next few days, my Etsy favorites (up on the top right corner of this blog) will be featuring lovely handspun yarns. I may have to go sit in my stash for a little while to keep me from buying more.
Yarn: Jenny Neutron Star handspun, "Candy"
Pattern: Top-Down Ribbed Beanie Recipe
Needles: US 11
I was worried about running out of yarn, and used up almost every inch of it. Now I think it’s too long, which is easy to do when working at a chunky gauge like this. I think I’m going to undo the bind-off and re-knit the hem on smaller needles (I did 3 rounds of reverse stockinette – I think 2 would be better).
One of the nice things about having an Etsy shop is that I don’t have to think about whether I would wear this (or when). I love the colors and the textures but it’s just a bit much. [Ms. M, I can hear you gleefully cackling at that one - you remember what my hair used to look like, after all.]
Yarn: handspun by Jenny Neutron Star, merino wool with random pieces of cotton, alpaca, silk, and tencel.
Pattern: Top-Down Ribbed Beanie Recipe
Needles: US 11
Pattern: Top-Down Ribbed Beanie Recipe
Recipe is written to be used with any yarn/needle combination you wish.
Sample in photo above:
Yarn: Noro Kureyon, colorway 164 (worsted/4/medium)
Needles: US 6/4.00 mm
The Top-Down Ribbed Beanie Recipe is now available through Ravelry as a free PDF download. As of June 2009, the PDF is topdownbeanie_v2.pdf – I’ve changed the layout and rephrased some of the directions.
