Tag Archives: Hat

Dec11

Blogmas Day 11

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Hi everyone.

Today we had to leave our cosy cabin and come home. I think the length of our stay was just right and considering we didn’t sleep too well I know we’ll both be glad to sleep in our own bed tonight.

It was mild, 6°C as a high, and we had quite a bit of rain. But it was a safe and easy drive and we stopped on the way to pick up some vegan baked treats.

After dropping our stuff back home we popped back out for some groceries and to take the car through a car wash. It was desperately in need of a clean!

Here’s the progress on my crocheted beanie that I’m designing on the hook. I used the darker pink for the brim along with a 5mm hook. The ‘ribbed’ strip was about 18″ long when I decided it was a good size to stretch around my head, so I joined the ends and then started working into the row ends for the body of the hat. Initially I tried a 6mm hook for this section but it was coming out too big so I ripped back and changed to a 5.5mm.

The lighter pink stripe may end up about the same width as the brim and then I’ll have to decide which color to use next.

The boys kept everything going well while we were away and we returned to a clean house. We did find out, though, that ds1 had had an accident at work on Monday but all three sons maintained their silence so that we wouldn’t worry while we were away.

Some 8-ft long work surfaces that were loaded into one of the trucks fell and landed on him, his left shoulder and arm taking most of the impact, though his head and jaw were bruised too. He went to the ER as he thought his arm might be broken but thankfully it wasn’t.

He’s been off work as a result, popping painkillers as needed, but he’ll be ok. (Once the initial shock was over, they were laughing about it, because the last time we went to the same cabin ds2 went into Emerg in an ambulance for a collapsed lung and I had told him he wasn’t allowed to have any more health scares!)

Day 11’s yarn and beads.

So, we’re back home and glad we have another day off tomorrow to get a few things done around here before work on Monday.

Feb7

Selvedges, scraps and stash

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Selvedges, scraps and stash

I had a bit of fun today, making a mask from some of my saved selvedges.

I used a lightweight fusible interfacing to build the new fabric from the strips, layering them and then ironing them down.

There was a bit of white zone on one strip so I added a teeny flowery circle from the same fabric as the lining.

I have a larger sewing project on the go: a table runner and placemats for my dining room table. I got as far as cutting, layering and quilting the pieces together, but when I reached the point of double-checking how many strips to cut for the binding I realised I may not have bought quite enough of that fabric. Doh! I’ll show you that project when it’s finished.

I did make a small dent in the yarn stash this week. I crocheted a slouchy granny beanie. I started out using a round blanket pattern and after the first seven rounds I stopped increasing and just made a hat rather than a blanket. After a few different attempts at a well-fitting brim, I went with a “ribbed” brim using front post and back post double crochet. (My Ravelry project page is here.)

The grey heather yarn is Red Heart Super Saver. Turns out I have lots left in the stash from the time I knitted a super bulky sweater. The bright colours are from various manufacturers.

I rather like the way the pink round looks like little hearts. Totally unplanned.

The weather forecast for this week is telling us to expect a cold snap. We’re looking at a minimum on Wednesday and Thursday nights of minus 23 Celsius and a daytime high of minus 13!!

It’s temporary, though, as more normal seasonal temperatures will be back the following week. I’ve been mulling over the idea of a temperature project. In 2013 I knitted a garter stitch scarf, using the daytime high to dictate which colour to knit into the scarf every day. I actually completed it (I think I amazed myself)!

With the huge drop in temperature expected this week, I wish I could come up with the right project to make. I don’t want to commit to a year-long blanket or scarf, but maybe a February hat or cowl is doable. I certainly have enough yarn to choose from. Hmmmm……..

Nov7

Throwback Thursday

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Today I’m looking back at 2009. There are finally some crochet projects in my Ravelry notebook, and also quite a few pairs of socks and fingerless mittens.

These two projects, though, are two of my favourites for the year. I don’t think I have the beanie any more, but I do have the mittens as they are warm. I even mended the end of one once when a stitch came loose from catching it on a keyring.

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My Ravelry project page is here. The pattern for this beanie is called the Fake Isle Hat and by using a variegated or self-striping yarn for the background it looks more complicated than it really is. It only took me two days to knit. This was, again, James C Brett Marble DK (the blue/pink) along with some Marks & Kattens Carolina (now discontinued).

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This pair of mittens took 10 days. Same yarns as the hat, but no pattern this time. I made up the Fair Isle patterns based on the way they divided into the number of stitches around the hand. I really like this sort of thumb. It’s easy, because when you’re knitting the tube for the hand you just place some waste yarn in the spot for the thumb (within the palm stitches) and then go back and pick up the stitches and knit the thumb later. I prefer the look and the fit better than a thumb gusset.

OK, that’s enough for this Thursday. Talk to you again soon.

 

Jul26

Crochet and fabric play

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She is done, my Mimic shawl. She had a bath and a lie-down on the blocking mats, and  a bit of steam, and she grew to 16.5 inches by 87.5 inches. Yup, pretty long, but lovely with it.

This used 260 grams of Lion Brand Mandala in the Troll colourway, so about one and two-thirds of the 150 gram cakes.

My stashbusting has been epic this month. Two shawls, a blanket and a hat completed and I also cleared out a bit of undesirable yarn from my stash. That’s a total of 2320 grams of yarn OUT! And none in.

The other small project I finished was this Walking Hat, so named because I crocheted it on my walks around the neighbourhood. I used up the last of my Caron Big Cakes in Shadowberry. I wouldn’t buy this yarn again. It’s not the nicest acrylic, in my opinion. It took three and a half walks to make. I probably got some second glances as I carried my yarn and hook around with me this week!

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In the grand scheme of checks and balances, I should be picking up  my paycheque today, which will include some extra hours and overtime. However, when I was at a coffee shop with a friend yesterday, my car was parked outside on the street, and during that time someone swiped it with their vehicle and took the paint off. Grrrr! I am claiming off my insurance, of course, but there is still a $500 deductible to pay. I had to spend some time on the phone to the insurers yesterday and book my poor car in for an estimate at the body shop.

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So what else is new? Ah yes, my quilting. I have been itching to make a quilt again. I started back in 1998, when I was expecting son #3, and took a class to learn how make a large quilt. It was definitely worth it and from then on I quilted like a crazy person for six years, until I got back into yarn crafts. I haven’t really felt the pull since, even though I now work in a fabric store, but that doesn’t stop me from bringing home pretty cotton fabric remnants now and then. If I really like something, I’ll buy a metre.

Anyway, I’ve recently been watching The Midnight Quilt Show on YouTube and have been enjoying watching Angela piece and machine quilt like the pro she is and it’s inspired me to get going again. I also have a pile of quilting books from the library. This week I pulled out a bunch of fabrics and decided on a theme. I am fussy-cutting squares from Pink Panther, Scooby Doo, camper vans, Vespas and colourful cats and using a backing of broadcloth to stitch-and-flip crazy log cabin blocks. I have six so far.

It’s a lot of fun and deliberately cutting the pieces a little wonky with scissors means no need for precision.

I have no plan as to the number of blocks to make or how it’s all going to come together. I’ll scratch this itch and see where it takes me.

Have a great weekend! (I’ll be working, and I’ll still do my best to have a great weekend.)

Oct24

WIP Wednesday

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Well, I do have some WIPs to show you, but first I have a TA DA!

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The Granny blanket is done! This is made with rather a lot of Loops & Threads Impeccable in various colours (from stash), plus some vintage acrylic, plus some new kelly green Impeccable. The kelly green is there because this blanket is for my friend and she and her husband support the Saskatchewan Roughriders football team.

I gave it to her today and I think she is pleased! She put it over her legs while we were visiting.

Another smaller FO is this hat…

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Rather ugly, I think, in brown and gold, but it used up a lot of vintage acrylic! And I was happy to practise on some yarn without using the “good stuff!” This hat was made on my Bond knitting machine. It was just a long rectangle, half brown, half gold, which was seamed into a tube and cinched at each end, then you push one half of the hat inside the other and TA DA, a reversible hat that has a quadruple thick layer over the ears.

Now onto the prettier stuff.

I found this Christmas-inspired Bernat Pop! at Walmart recently and was itching to knit with it. So I started a fair isle hat using a chart out of my Alice Starmore Charts for Color Knitting book. I’m using two cakes, pulling one strand from the outside of one cake, and the second strand from the inside of the other.

I don’t claim to be particularly good at stranded knitting, though I have the technique down. One yarn in each hand, plus the catching of the floats, no problem. My tension, well, that remains to be seen.

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I just love the colours. So much more appealing to me than the standard red, green and white. The colourway is called Candy Cane. One pattern repeat done. The background will be changing to aqua in the next repeat.

I started another project today too. I am not usually such a prolific starter (I still have two other WIPs which have been neglected and I don’t like having too many on the go) but I wanted to take something out with me to work on that was restful and didn’t need much attention while I visited with my friends. So I started this…

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I made a scarf just like this last year so I looked up my Ravelry project page to see what hook size I used. One skein and a 6.5mm hook gave me a scarf 9 squares wide by about 60″ long.  This bulky yarn (Loops & Threads Barcelona) is pretty and soft and makes a lovely texture in the C2C stitch pattern. I think I may make a coordinating hat like I did with the other colourway last year. And perhaps pompoms at each end…?

Gotta run – dinner is nearly ready. Happy crafting, y’all!

 

 

 

Jul12

Startitis

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My poor WIPs. I had good intentions, I really did. I posted pictures of them to the Finishalong2018 thread in the Crafternoon Treats podcast group on Ravelry (which I help moderate) with a plan to get ’em done. But I’m just not feeling the love.

So Startitis has hit me bad. After I crocheted those two small drawstring bags that I showed you last time, I made another ‘cake holding bag’ with Red Heart With Love. It started with a circle, which I just made up as I went along, doing however many granny clusters I needed to do to keep it flat, then it was granny stitch all the way up the sides. A small loop at the top finished it off.

By the time I finished it last night, sitting outside on the deck, it was getting dark.

I’ve already put it to good use, as I crocheted a hat today and put the cake of Bernat Pop inside it. This hat pattern is fast. I think it took around 2.5 hours total, and I got most of it done while waiting for the two boys at the dentist. It’s called the Newsboy Slouch and the Ravelry pattern page is here.

Very easy, very quick. I’m not 100% sold on how it suits me, but I’ll keep it for now. It’s not washed yet.

I also did some stealth crochet this week for a crochet designer. She asked me to be one of her testers, as I’ve tested for her before. It’s an afghan block with popcorns and overlay crochet, but I am waiting for her to publish her design before showing anyone my finished square.

So lots of hooking this week, and a teeny tiny bit of knitting. I have done four rounds of ribbing on a sock on US#1 needles. OMG, talk about fiddly. I’ll show you that project another time. In the meantime, have a great week!

Jun25

The sewing continues…

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The sewing continues…

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love these fabrics!
the lining

This Japanese Knot Bag is so simple to make and yet it looks great when it’s finished. I used this You Tube tutorial by The Crafts Channel. The longer handle threads through the smaller one to form a wrist-carrying loop. It has two contrasting fabrics on the outside, and you could also do two different ones for the lining but I just used one. (I suppose you could even use eight different fabrics in all, which would be an awesome way to use up smaller pieces.)

Rather than download and print a pdf, I eyeballed the approximate sizes from the video and drew it out on some Burda gridded pattern paper. I started with a 25 x 25 cm square for the body of the bag, and added handles, making one twice as long as the other.

This is the sort of bag it’d be fun to make in different sizes, which I might just do!

I had a bit of a tidy round today, did the vacuuming, bathrooms, kitchen cleaning etc, and now my three crochet WIPs have been relegated to my sewing room, demoted from their living room spots. I’m not loving any of them so decided to pretend they didn’t exist! Of course my Ravelry project page has them sitting there at the top, where I can’t ignore them, but I shan’t worry about that.

The one yarny project that is active right now is a knitted beanie that I’m making with the last of the Lion Brand Mandala cake (colourway Chimera) with which I knitted/crocheted my FIL two hats. Pretty great yardage, really, to get three hats out of one cake. I started with ribbing this time, on US#4 needles, 94 stitches cast on, then increased to 100 for the stockinette part on #5 needles.

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I found that knitting to 5.75″ last time, then doing the crown decreases, made for a hat that was about an inch too long, so either I will stop at 4.75″ and then start decreasing or, if the yarn looks plentiful enough at that point, I may go even longer and make it a slouchy. Maybe even add a pompom. Anything to finish this yarn cake.

Well, I have friends coming over tonight so I’d better sign off for now. I just couldn’t wait to show you my latest bag! Happy crafting!

May11

F is for Friday, Finishes, Food and Fitness

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Happy Friday, everyone! Thursday and Friday were kinda my weekend, as I’m working Saturday and Sunday. The forecast is for 28 degrees on Sunday.

I finished the hat that I started last night. It went quickly as I had plenty of opportunities to work on it today and I love it.

In the end, the hat incorporated the bright orange and purple parts of the Mandala cake, which is perfect, and used so little yarn that I have about half of the 150 gram cake left after finishing two beanies. It’s not quite as deep as the knitted hat, but I made it the same circumference – eighteen inches.

After a couple of months of more sedentary behaviour (following my accident) and just a few too many cheats and treats, I have been feeling somewhat blobby (proven by the spare tires that were exposed to the sun today). So I am being more careful with my food intake, both quality and quantity. Aiming to keep the Whole Food Plant Based No Oil ethics in mind, I am eating better, and also back to pushing it more at the gym. Yesterday and today I spent about an hour and a quarter at World Gym. I took my iPad which meant I could entertain my brain while I was on the treadmill for 40 minutes, and then followed that up with loose weights and machines. I wore my wrist brace of course but I am trying to do some upper body work, using a lighter dumbbell in the right hand. It’s amazing how a couple of months of injury time really set me back.

Smoothies are back on the menu now that the warmer weather is here. Last night we had one of my favourite meals, tortilla wraps with black beans, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, cucumber, and my home-made smoky chipotle tofu-cashew mayo. I even had the same thing for breakfast, thanks to leftovers.

Today I baked wholewheat hamburger buns and black bean burgers, and we had them with ketchup, mustard, smoky mayo, avocado, tomato and lettuce.

It was a fabulous Friday. I hope yours was too.

 

 

May10

Thursday thoughts

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With my yarn cakes now suitably dressed, I am able to move on to my next project (because God forbid I should be without a current Make In Progress)! In fact, the smaller of the two Cakeholes (see previous post) has already been pressed into service and is housing the remainder of the Lion Brand Mandala cake that I partially used for the knitted hat.

The next part of the cake is bright orange and magenta so I am continuing on where the light orange left off. This pattern (a simple hat pattern with a single cable running up the side) is a design by Clare of bobwilson123. I’m following her video tutorial here. This is to be a second hat for my father-in-law. I will send him both and see what he thinks. I’m crocheting this one with the same circumference as the first one, about 18″, because the foundation double crochet is  nice and stretchy and I’d rather it was snug.

The hat is just double crochet stitches with the cable being made of front post trebles and doubles. So far it measures about 2 inches, and that’s enough for me for one evening. I had a good long workout at the gym today and the wrist has probably had enough for one day.

So, I’ve been thinking. My method of blogging is usually (a) showing off something I’m making, or (b) showing off something I’ve finished, as and when it happens, plus random extra life comments. I see others where they are more organised, often through themes around the days of the week. What do you think? Do you like randomly timed published posts that just talk about what’s happening right now? Or do you prefer predictable and regular posts within a theme?

I just did a little brainstorming. Now I should say right here and now that any plans I may make to be more regular and predictable in my posting may not come to fruition. My motivation to post usually comes along with my crochet and knitting projects, and depends on the time and commitments I have on any particular day. Also I tend to resist setting goals and sticking to schedules (hmm, guess that’s where my kids get it from).

Looking around the internet for inspiration, there are ways to blog for each day of the week, such as Monday Makes, Tuesday Tips, Wednesday Workout, Thursday Thankfulness, Friday Fun, Saturday Scraps and Sunday Spirituality. (Those are just a few examples from the extensive list I’ve compiled.) Believe me, I have no plans to blog every day. I think it would feel like a chore if I tried to do that. Also I wonder whether losing the spontaneity of randomly timed posts would bother me; I’d have to start keeping notes of things I wanted to post about on the appropriate day.

I’d be interested in hearing your comments. Do you have a blog? Do you have a structure and schedule for posting? When you subscribe to a blog, what do you enjoy  most about it?  Thank you in advance for your input. 🙂

Sep9

Mandala mojo

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Two days ago, I was looking forward to starting a new project with some of my Lion Brand Mandala. But I didn’t realise how hard it was going to be to find JUST the right project to make. Forty eight hours later, I still haven’t cracked a cake!

I have browsed Ravelry multiple times with different advanced searches, looked at Pinterest, gone through my own pattern file, and I’m still not sure what to start. Having only one cake of each colourway limits me and now I’m wondering whether I should have bought fewer colours but more of each. It looks like it’ll be a shawl or cowl project, and I added some to my Ravelry queue to revisit later.

I had a free day today. A rest day from exercise, because I have weight-trained, walked, yoga’ed and worked this week, enough to feel like a rest day was necessary. Tomorrow I am booked into a Zumba class (I used to do these years ago and they were a lot of fun – sweaty fun). Having all this free time today meant I had to crochet something. So I made this…

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…which is another DMC Top This! hat, but crocheted without a pattern this time. The odd shape is due to the fact it is over the top of a cylindrical stainless steel Ikea cutlery holder!

The variegated pink and grey is the nicest section to crochet, the pink fluffy section is thicker and not as smooth on the hook, and the peachy section is just horrible – I hate that colour, it doesn’t really fit with the rest, it’s very synthetic-feeling and in places has a dark strand in it that makes it look dirty. I’ve liked the other kits that I’ve bought – the lamb and the cat were okay – but I wouldn’t use this one again.

At least it’s something used up from stash. I will hold onto this hat for now and see if I can find a local recipient for it. If not, undoubtedly there will be another parcel heading off to the UK in a few months.

Sometimes, when my inspiration deserts me, I make big bulky items to destash cheap acrylic. Maybe that’s what I need to do next. Perhaps some cat blankets for the SPCA. Now that’s an idea I can get on board with.

Enjoy your weekend 🙂  I am – we actually had RAIN last night and today and it is freakin’ awesome! And it was around 21 degrees and I was comfortable. YAY!