It’s not perfect, but it’s done. I’m reminding myself that I can knit another one, and having this gift checked off my list is more important right now! Weaving in all the ends and washing this tonight, then getting it wrapped up for Mom.
Ravelry Project: Holiday Hot Water Bottle
Pattern: Rachael’s ISBN Hot Water Bottle Cozy by Rachael Herron, modified to use stranded colorwork instead of the cable panel and with a shorter neck. The heart band at the bottom is from the chart in the Hearty-stripy sock pattern by Patty McEldowney.
Yarn: Plymouth Yarn, Galway, color 16 (red) and color 127 (light green)
More crochet lace rock doilies:
…and what the undersides look like:
These are fun and a good, healthy way for me to relieve stress. These are all freehanded – I don’t work from a pattern, just improvise motifs and then close the doily around the rocks with crocheted loops and decreases, using triple crochet, double crochet, and single crochet stitches. Margaret Oomen’s crochet covered sea stones have been a huge inspiration for these; you can find a free pattern for Little Urchin Crochet Covered Sea Stones on the Purl Bee blog and photos of Margaret’s work on her blog, Resurrection Fern. She also sells some through her Etsy shop (knitalatte, scheduled to re-open in early 2012).
I also have some plans to sell pieces from the Kokua Market Yarnstorming and other similar pieces (rock doilies and crochet jellyfish, primarily) to help raise funds for future yarnstorms. Now that I’ve told you, I should get on that!
The Slightly Slouchy Hat pattern was written because a certain surly, sarcastic teenager that I adore enjoys wearing hats that actively annoy people (such as a pilly, linty old rag of a hat, worn to a wedding reception). This teenager is a fan of bright orange, and at the time that I was writing up the pattern, I didn’t have any on hand. Bright stripes of Firefly butt were, fortunately, obnoxious enough, but I still wanted to make one in a bright orange. I asked for recommendations on Twitter, and Beverly of PoMo Golightly graciously passed along a skein of yarn that turned out to be just right. The shades of orange shift and flicker just a bit, giving it a little more interest than a flat monochrome would.
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
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Lava Flow Cowl #1 is still in progress. I misread the instructions and cabled more frequently than the pattern called for – letting it marinate while I think about working that into the pattern or just starting over.
Lava Flow Cowl #2 – frogged, as posted earlier.
Lava Flow Cowl #3 has knit up quickly; what I need to do now is weave in the ends, wash it, block it, and see if it’s the right length. This time I’m using Lana Grossa Alta Moda Cashmere on US #13 needles, and it is knitting up to be rather light and fluffy for something so bulky.
Lava Flow Cowl, free pattern from the DixieStix blog. I had two skeins of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky and a pair of US 10.5 knitting needles that I was okay with losing if airport security decided to confiscate them, so I took this on a very long airplane ride and it was great! Until I ran out of yarn.
It’s not long enough to make a comfortable cowl, and this yarn has been discontinued, so I’m going to frog it and make something else. I’m okay with that; I cast on another one in a different yarn and this time I made sure I have enough!
Originally published in the Winter ’07/Spring ’08 issue of Knitscene, the crochet pattern is now available as in a free eBook from CrochetMe (How to Crochet Granny Squares with CrochetMe). The pattern with full article on how to dye the motifs with food coloring is available for sale through the Interweave online store.
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.
