A Hat-Trick

And this makes three!

Three hats finished. This beanie is for (son) JJ. It's elegantly modelled by Polly, or, as this is for a boy, should that be 'Paulie'?

It's in Katia wool, Nepal I think. The colours came out a bit of a surprise - the outside of the ball looked like it was all blue, but it shaded through to grey, white then yellow. If it had been a bigger (longer) hat, it would have shaded back to blue again.

I blocked it gently - Polly helped with that. Blocking did make a difference to how well the stitches lay, especially on the crown where the increases are.

There was no specific pattern - I just kind of made it up as I went along. I knew what my gauge with that yarn is, (oh, yeah, I DID swatch!), and I knew what length from the crown, and what circumference I needed to have at the brim. It was just maths, after that. Whoever thought maths would be important!


Anyway, now JJ has a warm noggin.


PS. In case you're wondering what happened to Polly's 'skin'; no it's not acne scars, it's the unfortunate result of an attempt to spray-paint her gold to match another hat she was modelling. The paint dissolved the polystyrene!

Herye Bee Dragynes

A short break from knitting …

JJ and I took an evening walk yesterday to look for dragons.

You can find dragons just about everywhere, even, if truth be told, inside yourself.

We found this one close by. It’s not very dragonish; more like a grinning foolish puppy.

A couple of blocks away was this slightly more convincing beastie.

Just around the corner from home, this one lurks on the roof ridge. Its tail has a rather frivolous curl. The house resident came out as we were admiring the dragon. She said it was okay to take the photo, and told us of other dragons nearby.

And so we found one - a magnificent example; truly dragonish.

It’s amazing what you can see if you look up.

Cloche Encounters

I finished another hat!

I used the same pattern as the last one, but I actually followed it a lot more closely.

I also used a different yarn. This was left-overs from last time I had been knitting – over twenty years ago. I suspect it’s acrylic 8 ply, but there were no ball-bands so I’m just guessing. It went really quickly this time.

The increase pattern which had that ‘make one’, which also made a decorative hole, worked much better in the thinner yarn. It also showed the spiral pattern of those increases much better too. I will take a better photo when I can persuade Polly to co-operate.

I used these colours to match a jumper I had. I wore them both to a wine-tasting afternoon, followed by lunch at the Fairfield Boathouse. Both events were very nice; lunch was yummy.

In between rain-showers (it was Melbourne, after all!), the sun did shine, and I liked the effect of the backlight on the lavender bushes near where we dined. Of course I had my camera with me!

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Boat house without boats …

Firsty Work

I've actually finished something!

In my retail therapy shopping spree, I bought some chenille-style yarn, because I couldn't resist the soft feel of it.

I found a pattern I really liked, over here: a free cloche-style hat , and set to work.

Here is my finished hat, as modelled by the ever-patient Polly.

Now don't laugh - I know it's incredibly wonky and odd.

BUT
- it is the first hat I've ever knitted
- it is the first time I've ever knitted with a chenille-type yarn (and it too, needed 'wrangling' onto the needles)
- it's the first time I've ever used circular needles, or dpns

Here's a close up of the slightly odd texture, made that way because I knit funny - sort of a continental twist to each stitch; but I like it that way.


I really do wish patterns explained things a bit better. The pattern says to make one: m = make one, by knitting in the back of the next stitch and then knitting the st itself
but what it doen't say is that this will make a decorative hole as well as a new stitch.
I'm supposed to somehow just know that???

I frantically ripped back time after time to get rid of the holes which mysteriously appeared in my knitting. The photos on the pattern page do not show the tops of the hats, otherwise I would have twigged earlier what it was supposed to look like.

So, wonky and odd, it's done. It's a bit too big, and looks much too big on Polly's petite head. But I wear it, and it's very comfortable and warm.

When I have nothing else to do, (hah!) I will re-do it a little smaller.

Abandoned Blackberry

This is the progress I had made with the Blackberry wool.

I was going to make a hat, but now I'm not sure I have enough wool left to do that.
I've thought of just using what I've done as a band, and using something else for the top, in a cossack or pill-box kind of style. I don't know if that will work.

What I don't know would fill volumes! I'm on a steep learning curve here...

The Psychic Cat

I am certain that my cat, J, is psychic.

She loves playing with string. No shoelace is safe. The other day I left a pair of my lace-up boots in the kitchen. An hour later, one boot was two rooms away, virtually disembowelled, the lace just about completely separated from the boot.

For years (J’s nearly 11 years old) I have loosely tied a long shoelace to the back of a kitchen chair.

This is a cat toy. She deftly unravels it. I tie it on again in a different configuration, and a few days later, she’s worked it out, and teased it off.

Best game out it the sun is to wriggle a piece of rope along the grass. She chases it, pounces on it, and savagely “kills” it.

Whenever we return from a few days away, I have to have a Stern Talk with J to tell her not to scratch at the bedroom door at some unholy hour of the morning. This is a bad habit which surfaces after we’ve been away. She usually complies. It must be the Tone Of Voice that goes with the Stern Talk that does the trick.

I thought I would have to have a Stern Talk with J about yarn and knitting. All that lovely string …

Strangely enough, she has completely ignored my knitting. No chasing of balls of wool, no snatching at the working yarn, no sitting on work-in-progress, nothing. Apart from nibbling on my elbow as I knit, she disregards the whole thing as only a cat can do. It doesn’t exist, as far as she’s concerned.

This is a relief.

It doesn’t stop cat-hair getting into everything. It is inevitable that cat-hair is going to be an integral part of everything I knit. I’m sure there’s a word for fibre made from cat-hair, like angora is for rabbit, but I don’t know what that word is.

As I say, J must be psychic – if she had misbehaved with the wool, not only would she get the Stern Talk, if necessary I would have shut her out of the house while I knit!

Retail Therapy

We shopped.

My younger son (JJ, age 23 – not to be confused with J, the cat) came with me, as I had offered to knit him a beanie, and he was to choose the wool. We got a skein of Katia Nepal in blue/mustard/cream shades, and then I couldn’t resist some Katia Sherpa in cranberry with flecks for a hat for myself. Katia is a Spanish product; those are pure wool.

The Sherpa is still not a suitable yarn for the Bakers Boy hat – remember, the one that started this all off?

JJ was amazed at the range of wool available. He got all inspired by the colours, the textures, the possibilities, so we invested in some learn-to-knit kits and books for him, and another skein of Nepal, this time in reds/oranges/browns.

That was not the end of the treasures snaffled. There was some chenille-type yarn which I couldn’t resist. Did I mention I’m a sucker for texture? Soft, so soft …

I’ve started JJ off on some spare yarn, one with a more conventional texture. I’m not a suitable teacher – I knit funny. More on that later …