H Is For Hat

Of course!
I like making hats.
For a slow knitter like me, they give a quicker reward.
I can also experiment more easily, with less time and materials lost if it doesn't work out.

This hat is the Very Versatile Toque (VVT), made for my Bag Swap swapee.
It's my own design, but really, it's pretty generic for the most part. Knit a flat top, knit the sides, felt like crazy.Here Polly models the unfelted hat. It's way too big! Unfortunately, even after three hot washes and even drying in the tumble-dryer, it was still too big. The yarn was "hand-wash". Felting really is a random event.

The VVT is basic black felted hat that can be adorned to match any outfit -dress it up or dress it down – it will go with anything!

The secret is the in-built tab. This can be used to thread a scarf or ribbon, or attach a brooch, studs, an ornament or fascinator.

The integral tab is shown here.

There is a lined top form included inside the hat. This provides a firmer shape for the top of the hat. The photos were taken with the form in place.

Here the toque is adorned simply with a netting circlet and rosette on a brooch clip.

Here the leopard print scarf is tied through a buckle and added below the netting.

A simple twisted velvet ribbon passes through the loop at the end of the ribbon, and then through the tab and tied off.

A multi-coloured silk scarf is wrapped twice and knotted around the tab.

An extra-long scarf is passed through the tab once, then twisted on itself and wrapped around the hat again. The ends are tucked in.

I don't know if my swapee liked the hat: she didn't say. I don't even know if it fitted, or if she even tried it on. Oh well. Now I know why many people only knit for themselves.

G Is For Glass

I like glass. Sparkly, shiny, transparent, translucent, sometimes almost invisible.

The glass sweeties were a present from my mum, who guaranteed they were zero calories. Bit crunchy, though.

While I haven't set out to collect glass, sometimes it just comes my way; a bit like the dragons. I especially like the blue cobalt glass, the real stuff, but other colours (or clear) can be chosen - it's just what appeals at the time.My kitchen window gets the sun all day, and is the perfect spot to put the pieces.
They look lovely backlit.

The glass candlestick is Mexican. I like its quirky imperfections, its lopsidedness, the trapped air-bubble, and the way the top blue bit seems to float in the air because of the transparent support stem.
The very round piece was a birthday present from Mr M last year. He got it "signed" (engraved) by the glass artist who made it. That wonderful curved shape is just begging to be held and petted. Not the same way as alpaca yarn, of course, but it's still a very tactile piece.

I also have some prisms and faceted crystals hanging in the window. Not in a hippy way - more in a scientific way - the refraction of a light source, the scattering of rainbows all through the kitchen. Yeah, really. The house was designed on passive solar principles, so the angle of the roof blocks the sun in summer. As the year progresses, the angle of the sun gets lower, and the crystals light up again. My rainbows return round about Valentine's Day. They make up for the days getting shorter.
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