northern skies

I am ridiculously excited this week, because this silly hat I made won the Purl City yarns design competition accessories category and customers' choice award!

It's called Northern Skies, with apologies to I am Kloot, it can't do much for your rock'n'roll street cred to have a song commemorated in knitwear. I designed and made it in January to enter the Purl City 'Inspired by Manchester' design compo. I couldn't think of anything more typically Manc than a row of terraced houses, and I liked the idea of having them go all the way round a hat in a continuous circle. I also liked the idea of having stars in the sky, people always say you can't see them in a city, but it's not truuuuue, I should know I spend a lot of time in the gutter looking up at them.

It was a little daunting to knit, the houses are all done in stranded colourwork so there's not a lot of stretch, but fortunately the fit around the head is pretty spot on. (Fits my head too, the model above has a pretty much adult sized head now!) The bit with the windows was fun, I just went for a random pattern with some lights on and some off. As a rule there aren't more than two windows next to each other in the same lighting state, as this makes for tricky long float/weaving in issues, which I prefer to avoid as much as possible. All my fingers were occupied by coping with three colours at once anyway. Yikes! Turns out it's quite doable, but a pretty immersive task. Good job I managed to get through those few rows without needing to answer the phone / scratch / point at anything.

The sky is Fyberspates Sparklesock in Midnight, which is dark blue with little silver spangles in, so it's just perfect. I embroidered a few extra stars on with this Drops Metallised silver thread, and also backstitched up and down between the houses in grey to outline them a bit. The grey is a slightly heavier weight, it's King Cole baby alpaca dk, and the brickwork is Lang Jawoll sock, but I quite like the way this gives the houses a strong, cartoonish outline. The roofs are purled to make them stand out a bit against the sky.

I might get round to writing up the pattern some time soon, but I am quite bad at finding the time to do this, and tbh I'm not sure anyone else would be daft enough to make such a thing anyway. Rubbishknitterjunior likes it a lot though.

Thanks everyone who voted for my hat, and Purl City for the awesomely generous prize! :)

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hatty gifts

So I finally got round to delivering all the Christmas gifts that I epically failed to finish and get to the correct recipients before they disappeared for the festive season. The prezzies sat under the Christmas tree for ages then, even more pathetically, just alone on the floor after the decorations had been taken down. Now, at last, I have managed to actually give them to the correct people! So I can put up some piccies.

The top picture is Koolhaas, made from random aran weight merino I picked up at woolfest. I am such a fan of this burnt orange colour. And it was a great pattern, I thought. Simple enough to memorise for bus knitting, but engaging enough to make the commute to work fly by. The resulting hat is pleasingly tactile, and it didn't take long at all.


Neither did this one - it's Into the Valley from Bobbins magazine, designed by the very clever and lovely audreym. It's for blokes, but I am modelling it here on my massive heid and it fits me quite nicely too. Also in some aran weight merino I picked up from the same stall at Woolfest, wound immediately and lost the label for, so I can't tell you where exactly. (Could have been the yarn yard, or the stall next to it!) The pattern is ace, the staghorn cable pattern has that elusive quality of looking quite complicated and skilful whilst actually being mega easy to do.

I do like a woolly hat. Was very difficult to give both of these away! But I feel there will be more hats in the not too distant future...

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of pirates and ladybirds

So I saw audreym knitting a pirate hat recently and realised that it had been a while since I had made one. I'm quite impressionable, and essentially just a copycat. I was also due to attend a certain young lady's first birthday party. So I cast on for a slightly cheerier coloured version of the baby sized pirate hat that I made previously.

I do love this pattern - We Call Them Pirates from Hello Yarn. As you can maybe tell by the way it's my third go at the same pattern. I'm just not sure it's possible to knit anything more pleasing than stranded skulls and crossbones. The pink and green yarn is from my neverending skein of handdyed Green Eyed Monsters sock. It's the third project I have got from one skein and there's still a fair bit left! This yarn is so much fun, although possibly the skulls and crossbones are a bit less obvious in this colourway on a white background. But if you squint, hopefully you will be made aware of the need to immediately abandon ship before it's too late.

I also made these ladybird mittens for my little fella. (Sorry for the slightly twilighty photo, there's not a whole load of daylight left after work for photography these days, boo). The pattern is on flickr here. I was starting to feel a bit guilty, last year's mittens are now far too small, and it is getting mighty nippy out there. The child has also taken to getting the oven gloves out of the drawer and toddling around wearing them in a slightly ridiculous fashion. I felt that maybe he was trying to tell me something. The great thing about these mittens is that their comedy insect nature entertains the child enough to leave them on his hands. Last winter, when out walking I was stopping about every three paces to replace the mitts, a game which literally never got tired! It's the same yarn as last years actually, James Brett Merino DK, which i love for children's things - soft, cheap and warm and in a mega cheerful range of colours.

The dividing line between the wing cases is backstitched afterwards and the spots are duplicate stitched on. The species is Adalia bipunctata if you were wondering. A cynic might suggest I picked this one to minimise embroidery effort, but it is in fact one of my favourite varities of ladybird. Frankly, whilst very lovely, a lot of the projects in ravelry don't look like any species currently known to science. (And i'm definitely not celebrating the harlequin in knitwear, at the moment we are experiencing a neobiblical plague of them in our back yard.)

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small colourful things

Where I live in Manchester there are a couple of nice yarn shops in the suburbs, but until now, in the city centre there has only been Abakhans. This is an amazing shop for fabric and haberdashery, just up the road from where I work, so at lunchtimes I am often to be found gawping at buttons. There's a little yarn section at the back. On the plus side they sell James Brett merino and the staff are extremely helpful, having once tracked down an extra ball of wool for me long after it had been discontinued and I had given up all hope of finishing the jumper. However, pastel coloured acrylic features heavily in their rather limited selection. So it is with some excitement that I heard about the soon-to-open Purl City Yarns in central Manchester. This is going to be run by a lovely lady called Charlie, I have met her once at a local knitting group and she bought me a pint so I like her. And judging by the list on that website she is going sell lots of really awesome yarn.


So basically I'm trying to save my pennies and not buy any more yarn before the opening of the shop, hopefully any day now. This has coincided with the birth of lots of babies amongst my friends and family. Halp! Fortunately I have a drawerful of yarn already, and newborn babies are small, so I've been able to make a couple of newborn slipstitch hats and a Hunter mini tank top. These are both my own patterns, so I've not been very adventurous. But I do enjoy knitting them, and I know exactly how little yarn I can get away with in each case.



I actually really like this sort of thrifty knitting. Choosing colour combinations from lots of little balls of yarn is great fun. I have become mildly addicted to ColourLovers for this sort of thing. (If you haven't been, you definitely should, but be warned, you will spend ages on there - it's like Ravelry for stoners).

I find it very satisfying to use up oddments of yarn, and I like the way it's a little reminder of past efforts. The first hat shown is knitted from Dale Baby Ull left over from the baby norgi. This little tank top was made with some of the original yarn from the version I made from Bobbins Magazine, I dunno what it is but it feels like cotton. I treated myself to a new silly button though, it was only 8p from the aforementioned Abakhans :D

The second hat is more of the same white and blue Dale Baby Ull but with a teeny tiny bit of really lovely handspun alpaca (the brown stripe), leftover from this hat, one of my most worn headcoverings for its lightness and warmth. It was a treat to knit with this again.

So the new babies are warm, and oh look! I have made a little bit of space in the drawer... bwahahaaaaa! *plots*

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fairy yarnmothers

Ok, so I'm a little behind on documenting my yarny adventures, so here's a slightly compressed and rather picture-heavy catchup post. About a month ago, I was invited to a destash party with the lovely Kate from Green Eyed Monsters and Kath from Six Swans. As they are both uberawesome yarn producers, this is the kind of event you would literally drop everything and pelt towards immediately. So I did! Leaving Mr. Rubbishknitter to sweep up the shards of crockery.


And here is the extremely lovely handspun that I managed to swap for some strawberry laces. The multicoloured skein is from Green eyed monsters, the white is from Six swans, and the brown is from an alpaca called Jemima at Black Mountain Alpacas. Good old Jemima. All so very pretty and squishy, and I had the cunning idea of combining all the mini-skeins together into a hat. Just a basic beanie, cast on 108 stitches in the round on 3mm needles, with a stripe pattern reflecting the relative amounts that I had of each colour (I had to double-strand the white, it was a bit thinner than the other two). It's a lot lighter in weight than most of my winter hats, and is probably what the posh knitting mags would call 'trans-seasonal' and I would call, er, not dead thick. Still very comfortable and pleasantly earwarming though, I love it and have worn it a lot. Thanks ladies! Also, I kind of hoped that casting on for a hat in March would speed up the arrival of Spring, a bit like sparking up a cigarette when you are waiting for a train. And it seems to have worked! Almost, if you squint out of the window and pretend it isn't chucking it down today.


In other news, imagine, if you will, how much opening this unexpected parcel would make you grin like an idiot. The answer, if you are in any doubt, is rather a lot! If the impossibly cheerful bright pillar box red colour isn't enough after the sensory deprivation of winter, it is incredibly squishy merino laceweight that you have to stroke against your face immediately, and a 100g skein, which in laceweight is probably enough metreage to knit a jumper for the moon. It also wins the Pleasing Packaging Award for the big smiley face on the label. It's from the incredibly generous Kate B. Hmm, and here on my table is the Winter/Spring issue of Knitscene, with the rather lovely laceweight Geodesic cardigan... *ponders*

So a massive thankyou, to er, Kate, Kate, and Kath! (And Jemima). Your gifts of awesome are very muchly appreciated!

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a small treat

Well, after all those wool/acrylic squares for the Macmillan blanket, I really wanted to have a go on something soft and lovely. This hat came from a single skein of 100% alpaca handspun that I bought on UK Ravelry Day from Six Swans. It's so unbelievably soft, knitting with it was like jumping into a river of marshmallows. I was kind of gutted to finish the hat. It was originally intended to be for the baby, but soon after I cast on, I realised it was a little on the big side. Then the voice of Satan started whispering things in my ear like 'he'll only grow out of it' and 'babies wouldn't appreciate the fineness of this handspun anyway'. After a while, I started to agree with Satan. So it's mine! Unlucky, kiddo.

I didn't use a pattern, and kept it extremely simple, I think it's better to let the loveliness of the handspun speak for itself. It's just 80 stitches, knitted in the round, stocking stitch with a couple of rows of garter stitch at the start to stop the edge curling, and an 8 point type decrease at the crown. And now I have warm ears! Hooray.

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yo ho ho and a bottle of milk

Literally everyone I know is pregnant at the moment, it's like the Midwich Cuckoos. So I have a lot of baby gift knitting to do. And in a remarkable stroke of fortune at knitting group the other week, a lady walked in with a massive pile of yarn she wanted to get rid of. We spread it all out on the table, it immediately disappeared behind a blur of limbs and a sort of feeding frenzy ensued, after which I emerged with a cone of mysterious black 4plyish acrylic. Paired with a neverending ball of cream coloured baby type acrylic, that has been in my cupboard for about 2 years and incorporated in tiny quantities into about 50 projects, it was ideal for this hat.


It's We Call Them Pirates, sort of. I had to make it smaller, obv, and I wasn't about to buy thinner yarn or wreck my wrists wrestling with tiny needles, so I missed out the vertical stripes. I just chopped off the right hand 4 stitches of the chart, so I cast on 112 stitches instead of 128. I also got a bit bored knitting the lining, so mine is only about an inch long - more of a knitted hem. It's stranded anyway so it's going to be pretty warm, the baby isn't planning on any arctic expeditions AFAIK. I've not done this sort of finish before - it used a provisional cast on to knit up the lining after finishing the main bit of hat. It sounds a bit faffy but I must say I do like the result - it has a nice sturdy feel to it, and it really didn't take that long. The skull and crossbones bit was loads of fun. I can sense more of these hats in my future. Modelled by rubbishknitterjunior with a bit of negative ease - he is one now, it should be about right for a normal head sized 6 month old.

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ode to Noro

Oh, your twig content is high
And your knots are many
Buggering up many a carefully planned stripe sequence
Some say you are scratchy
Although my peasanty skin doesn't mind
You have hidden unexpected colours
Which jump out alarmingly from the middle of the ball
In short, i have some issues with you
But will keep buying you
(As an occasional treat,
because you cost a bomb and I am brassic)
Basically I can't resist you
Because your colours are Soooooo Preeeeetty.

The End.


This is Turn a Square from brooklyntweed, a present for a friend of mine who enjoys a woolly hat. Noro Silk Garden colour 236, striped with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in Anthracite. Nice quick easy knit, but not at all boring with those pretty colour changes going on... sometimes we all need a bit of Noroey goodness.

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fruity

Recently I've been quietly plodding through the brown jumper, and I'm nearly there... just the hood to finish! But it seems rather unspringlike all of a sudden. I felt the need for a quick gratification brightly coloured project, and a friend is having a baby shower next weekend, so I raided the yarn cupboard. Finding two rather nice balls of Rowan Handknit Cotton sitting there sadly alone in the corner, I decided this strawberry hat was the best option for the cheerfully springy colours. Probably because I have a mild to moderate obsession with fruit, which I think derives from playing too much pac-man as a child.

Unfortunately the pattern doesn't seem to be online any more - it was once on the Lion Brand website, but there appears to be a lot of similar fruit-related whimsical headgear around for babies. Great fun to make and pretty easy, do-able in a couple of days. Probably less if you don't have to spend much of your days playing peek-a-boo.

If anyone's wondering if I managed to make something in time for Amy's birthday, who gave me the wall hanging, the answer is Very Nearly. It's finished now but I can't post photos because I've got a plan to write up the pattern and send it into Knitty. I know, it's a bold move! Am I mad? Or just skint and fearless? Or possibly all three?! Anyway you're not allowed to blog about anything you submit to them. So I'll put up photos in a couple of weeks once I get the rejection email :) I say a couple of weeks, but actually it takes quite a while to write up patterns in a non-halfarsed way, I'm discovering, so it might just about get submitted in time for the Spring 2020 issue... but now I've announced it to the internets so I have to do it!! *kicks self*
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there has also been knitting

In the form of this hat. From a Finnish pattern - Imitaatio BB:n Tiinan piposta
by Lauran Blogi (helpfully translated into English, and found on Ravelry). I picked up a skein of
Araucania Azapa at the Stitch and Creative Crafts Show at Manchester Central. I really, really didn't need any more yarn, but I decided it was acceptable to buy some if:

a) it's only one skein
b) you cast on for something the same day and
c) you are selflessly making a birthday prezzie for a friend.

So here it is! Nice quick knit and I like the simplicity of this pattern. The yarn is a pleasingly fat chunky single ply wool / alpaca / silk blend, nice and gentle on the fingers. A bit like knitting with roving, or a very long udon noodle. Should be lovely and cosy, and there is enough yarn left from the single skein for a small snood as well. Maybe. Or a very very short scarf.



Last year at the Stitch and Creative Crafts show, I went to buy yarn and came away with loads of sewing stuff as there was lots more of that around. This year, dizzy with the success from the completion of my quilt, I was looking for sewing stuff, but found piles of very tempting yarn instead. There were a couple of sewing stalls, I managed to get a rotary cutter as well. (And managed to cut my finger with it literally seconds after getting it out of the packet - doh!).


I'm also rather pleased with this macro lens which I have sneakily borrowed from my cousin. You can get rather a lot more close-up detail with this thing. Woooah.... look the depth of field on that! it's, like, one stitch...

Happy Valentine's Day everybody. I hope the postman brought you sacksful of cards from admiring suitors.

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Maslow's hierarchy of craft-related needs

I seem to have fallen off the bottom of it recently. If knitting things of intricate beauty, taking photos and blogging are at the top, and urgently making warm stuff to keep your family's extremities from falling off during blizzards is at the bottom. (Maslow's hierarchy is defined here if you've never studied psychology. Obviously he wasn't originally talking about knitting, more about life in general). So I've been mostly spending January being distracted from my major WIPs by small but important projects for the warmness and general wellbeing of those around me.

Like the above tiny baby socks made out of DK yarn scraps. Pattern is Socks in a box from the January issue of Knitting magazine. I've never read this before but I rather enjoyed it - I bought the mag, cast on and finished this project on the same day - don't think that's ever happened before with a magazine. They're just like normal socks to knit, but gratifyingly swift. Not quite as awesome at staying on as Christine's stay on baby booties, but they took almost no time at all and used up tiny bits of yarn that were otherwise utterly useless.

I also had to fulfil a request for head warming gear from Mr. Rubbishknitter, so made this manly muted coloured hat. It's just a plain 1x1 rib beanie from Rowan Pure Wool DK. I thought it would be a tedious knit but it is the loveliest yarn ever I have to say, so it was actually a pleasure. Really springy and light but warm merino, feels lovely against the skin. (Yes, I have stolen this hat a couple of times to walk the dog, although pleasingly it is rarely off the big fella's head.) File under boring-but-useful. Oh - and I did have something of a hat-knitting epiphany - I knitted it on two circulars. Honestly, how much unnecessary hassle have I caused myself in the past by using dpns for this? Constantly picking up dropped stitches off the ends, and wondering if it's going to fit, but not really knowing until I reach the crown because I am too lazy to put all the stitches on scrap yarn. With two circulars you can cast on, knit a couple of rows of ribbing and check fit straight away while it's still on the needles! Easy enough to start again at that stage if it isn't totally perfect... I feel like something of an idiot for my previous slapdash trial and error approach. No more giving away failed hats I had earmarked for my large-headed self to children! I can see more hat knitting in my not too distant future...

I'm also in a frenzy of activity to finish the baby's quilt, as my mother in law pointed out winter is nearly over and he might not fit it next year... and it's gone mightily cold in the nights round here... it's quite laughably amateurish looking but excitingly, I'm nearly there....

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project proliferation

It seems I went from a short period of craftlessness, to a short period of frenzied overcompensation by starting a cornucopia of different projects. This is going to be Riding to Avalon. I am in dire need of nice warm jumpers that fit post-childbirth, and I have a surfeit of merino. Also I have been doing loads of knitting for other people lately and I decided it was time for something for me, dammit! The hoodie is progressing well, although I was alarmed to note that it appears to be rolling at the hem, despite a garter stitch row to counterbalance the stocking stitch. If I was making it again, I would probably put another garter stitch row in. As it is, I am far too lazy to unravel all that work and am putting my faith in a future stern blocking instead. The lovely shiny needles are Addi turbos kindly lent to me by Cat - thanks for that! The shininess is keeping me mesmerised as I knit.


I'm simultaneously ploughing through a pair of stripy garter rib socks in some lovely Kaffe Fassett / Regia yarn. This picture is a bit old, I'm nearly at the top of Sock 1 now. Plain, toe up sock with a short row heel. Making it up as I go along!

Flitting around between projects like a drunken butterfly, I also made a new hat for rubbishknitterjunior. It's getting a bit chillier now and I decided a warmer, room-for-growing into model was needed. The yarn is some Katia Scotch Tweed that I got out of a bargain bin ages ago when I was learning to knit, but hadn't yet learned the inadvisability of buying odd balls on a whim. So it has been sitting at the bottom of the cupboard for a year or two.

Babies are pretty useful for using up these kind of scrag ends of yarn. The wee fella looks a bit bemused by the whole thing, but I'm sure he appreciates the extra headwarmth. The pattern is made up, but based on a photo of me as a nipper, wearing a similar model. Am I really going to post this? Well, I can't really embarrass myself any more than I have done already on this blog, so here we go with some lookeylikeys for you. Don't laugh. My cheeks are slightly less prominent now. I left off the pompom on his hat so as not to compromise his masculinity.

Rubbishknitterjunior	The author, a short while ago

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rainy day hat

Irritatingly, Elijah the elephant used 1.000001 balls of Rowan Wool Cotton, so I thought I'd use up the remnants on another baby hat. I made this one up as I went along. It struck me when I was making the elephant that this yarn has a soft shininess with very clear stitch definition, so would probably be well suited to cables. This stitch pattern has one-stitch cables in a braided pattern across a 1x1 rib. The idea was to keep some of the stretchiness of the ribbing for a fast-growing small head, and it kind of worked. It was also partially inspired by the British summer - the blue-grey pattern reminded me of the rolling raindrops on the windowpane. And now I've finished it, the sun has come out. So apologies to my compatriots if my knitting this hat brought the rain gods out of hiding.


I did the cabling without a cable needle, because I am a daredevil who likes an element of risk in her knitting. The yarn colour suits a blue-eyed boy, and I was going to try and get a picture of the young gentleman wearing it, but before I could, he had vomited on it approvingly. Fortunately this yarn is machine washable.

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rubbishknitterjunior

I know I've been a bit quiet, but I've been busy! So here are some of the things I have been making recently.

• A son, born last Sunday


• A slip stitch hat for newborns

The former was 8lb 12oz and quite cute.

The latter was made up out of scrap yarn during a sleepless night last week while I pondered whether I was in labour or just having indigestion (with hindsight, I suspect a combination of the two). I have never really done much with slip stitch patterns, so was quite surprised to see how it's not just the pattern but the texture that is affected - it looks kind of like ribbing. The hat's also actually been very useful. Amazingly, it fits perfectly! And newborn babies seem to be a bit rubbish at regulating body temperature, even in summer - any bits of baby that aren't under a blanket generally feel freezing. So if anyone else is interested, here is a quick attempt to write up the pattern (it was reaaaally easy, takes approx. one sleepless night to make)

Newborn slip-stitch hat

Yarn: Oddments of Rowan 4 ply cotton in leaf green and purple, scrap of Debbie Bliss Cathay in turquoise (I know, this is a slightly thicker yarn, which is a Knitting Crime, but it was the most suitable scrap yarn i could find in the cupboard at 1 am!)
Needles: 3 mm double-pointed
Size: Large-headed newborn

• Cast on 100 stitches over 3 needles, join to work in the round.


• MC (leaf green): Do about 10 rows of k1, p1 ribbing


• CC1 (turquoise): repeat around: [k1, sl1 purlwise]*


• CC1 (turquoise): k


• CC2 (purple): [k1, sl1 purlwise]*


• CC2 (purple): k


• MC (leaf green): [k1, sl1 purlwise]*


• MC (leaf green): k


• Repeat last 6 rows another 6 times (or possibly 5 would be enough if the intended recipient is blessed with a more normal head size!)


• Start decreasing, maintaining slip stitch pattern:


• CC1: [[k1, sl1] 4 times, k2tog]* around


• CC1: k


• CC2: [[k1, sl1] 3 times, k1, k2tog]* around


• CC2: k


• MC: [[k1, sl1] 3 times, k2tog]* around


• MC: k


• CC1: [[k1, sl1] 2 times, k1, k2tog]* around


• CC1: k


• CC2: [[k1, sl1] 2 times, k2tog]* around


• CC2: k


• MC: [k1, sl1, k1, k2tog]* around


• MC: k


• CC1: [k1, sl1, k2tog]* around


• CC1: k


• CC2: [k1, k2tog]* around


• CC2: k


• MC: [k2tog]* around


• Break MC yarn and pull through remaining stitches. Break other yarns and weave in ends. Place on baby.

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the acceptable face of pink

Check me out, with my pictures of knitting and flowers - I am the new yarnstorm!! (although a slightly less classy version with a woodchip background).

I hate the colour pink. Too much of a tomboy I'm afraid, and I get really annoyed when you go to the shops and every electronic appliance you look at has a Ladies Version in pastel pink with a few useful buttons removed. But I'm trying to overcome my aversion. I've decided that pink is acceptable when:

• It is given to you in the form of a pretty birthday orchid


• It is a muted dusky rose-type shade, like in this hat


• It comes in the form of free cashmere


• It is used as an accent colour with a tasteful grey

So a friend was having a yarn clearout (friends like these are definitely worth cultivating!) and I was unable to resist this lovely soft cashmere, in what I guess you would describe as fingering weight, although it has no ball band so I can't really tell you exactly what it is. Thinner than sock yarn, it's slightly over-delicate - it broke in a couple of places, so I hope my spit splicing holds up to the trials of baby headwear. But it's the kind of stuff you want to hold to your cheek.







There was only a really small amount of this lovely yarn, so I made it into an earflap hat for the scarily quickly expanding bump in my abdomen. I actually got the idea from a picture of me as a baby wearing a pretty awesome handknitted earflap hat. (I'm not going to post this one! too embarrassing). I couldn't find a similar pattern so I made it up. I've written down what I did, but I have no idea whether it'll fit or not yet, so I don't know whether it's worth putting up full instructions. I kept meaning to buy a grapefruit and test it, as this is supposed to be about the same size as a newborn baby's head. But grapefruits are quite big aren't they, and I don't really feel I can look at one at the moment with terrifying myself. So I'll just knit happily away, try not to think about grapefruits and hope the hat fits someone or something.

It's a pretty simple pattern. I made two earflaps knitted flat, then joined them to knit in the round, casting on a few stitches in between for the front and back. For the first time I attempted Meg's Jogless Jog to handle the stripes. This does look a bit better I think, although you can still tell where it is (look at the photo on the right, at the back of the hat - just on the right of the left hand earflap). To stop the stocking stitch rolling at the forehead I crocheted a border all the way around the bottom edge - just one row of double crochet (single crochet if you're from the USA) in grey. Also blocked it gently to encourage it to calm down a bit.
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slightly belated christmas present round-up

I made a load of Christmas presents for people last year. It has taken me some time to get off the sofa and post them, because a) it is freezing in the computer room and b) Santa brought me a cornucopia of Nintendo games which have been taking up much of my time. However I do need to stop playing elite beat agents now as every time I blink I see a dizzying succession of decreasing concentric circles, and if I can make these go away before bedtime I feel it would be a bonus.

So here is a quick parade of the stuff I made in December 2K7:

Snowflake hat 1

Made out of King Cole Merino blend DK, with some contrasting scraps of white from the bottom of the cupboard. I just did a plain beanie with a stranded snowflake pattern.

Snowflake hat 2

Yes, I am snowflake obsessed. This is another plain beanie that I embroidered a small snowflake motif onto. I got a bit carried away and put beads on the embroidered bit at strategic points. First time I've really attempted this and I did a pretty rubbish job. It probably took me as long to embroider the motif as it did to make the whole hat. Made out of lovely undyed Wensleydale longwool (from a black sheep, obv). The wool was left over from making:

Boring ribbed hat

For my brother so I toned down the motif-related tomfoolery and went for a more sober item of headgear. It's lovely and soft and warm though. This one is from a pattern - cashmere ribbed hat (or, not cashmere if you're a cheapskate like me).
And finally...

Crocodile mitts

I was quite pleased with these. I made them up completely - started them a while ago. Redid the fingertip bit from the original post to give them a more rounded end for a less sharp-fingered wearer. They are lovely and warm, made of Twilley's Freedom Spirit 100% wool in , er, crocodile colour. I did write down the details after the first mitt, to make the second one the same, so if anyone has a burning desire to make their own crocodiles I could probably attempt to put up some kind of pattern.


Snowflake close up..


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fake isle recharted

I was recently asked to share the chart i made up for this hat. So here it is! It's a 12-stitch repeating pattern around the hat. When i reached the top of this chart I switched to fake isle chart 2 for the crown.

I cast on 120 stitches, so did this pattern 10 times around, but be warned - i have a freakily big head - under no circumstances attempt this hat without measuring your own and swatching first! You could easily miss out a row or two if the chart is too big. I think I actually did 5 rows of k2,p2 ribbing, then 2 knit rows one in each colour before i started the snowflake bit, so you could add/remove rows pretty easily here. The hat is quite big even on me, and very warm and snug because of the stranding and 100% woolliness of the Kureyon.

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starlet

I made this hat a while ago too. I think around February / March time, after I'd finished Zelda and emerged blinking from the lounge into daylight for the first time in a while. The yarn had that sort of spring sunset feel about it which I liked. It's from Natural Dye Studio on ebay - can you believe all those nice bright colours are sourced from plant extracts?!? It's just trinity stitch, knitted in the round, with a bit of ribbing at the bottom. I stole the idea off craftster. The yarn is DK weight so my nobbles are a bit smaller. It kind of looks like those old skool swimming caps, like on the cover of Leisure by Blur.
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