Tag Archives: Knitting and Crochet

firing the blog back up…

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Hello one and all … it has been 6 months since I posted…I was working…what can I say…although that excuse wears thin a couple of months ago…so be it.

I am sick of starting new blogs when I travel so I am just going to stick you people with my travel stuff too.  There aren’t that many of you anyway.  I am leaving tomorrow for India and Bhutan (aka the happiest place on earth).  I have been to India, but never Kolkata, twice before (25 years ago on Alan and my year long 1/2 bike trip…India killed the bike part) and 8 years ago with the kids on the six month trip documented on:

http://rockingestlittleflightlessbirdsever.blogspot.ca/

This time I will spend a couple of days alone in Kolkata then be joined by my sister Felicity’s son, David, My sister Penny’s daughter, Laura, My sister Nicola’s husband, Surya and my sister Melanie’s husband, Pat for the Bhutan part of the trip.  I have already familiarized myself somewhat with the GKA, even though I am not actually on a plane yet.  This is for two reasons…1) we gave our Lonely Planet, India to street urchins in Bangkok so they could make money re-selling it and I don’t want to pay another $42 for a 2-inch book only a few pages of which are relavent.  and 2) did I mention I would be alone?

I have been getting ready for the trip by exercising.  I have been walking with friends and attending aquafitness classes.  I have discovered a pool where three times a week it is possible to go to 4 aquafitness classes in a row, thus getting 3 hours of exercise.  This has helped me build my stamina so I can do the walking around (with my pack if neccessary).

I did make a hat last week on the new years party hat theme..it is felted three times through the washer and dryer.  I am thinking of inserting an ear covering armature for cold nights and adding some decorative bits…

..he insisted that the cat may become an internet phenomenon if only she got exposure...

..Alan insisted that the cat may become an internet phenomenon if only she got exposure…

Rude inside

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My son Jacob’s girlfriend Sarah asked me a while ago to make her a hat that has rude expressions on it.  She turns 19 today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her!  Don’t scroll down if swear words offend you….actually I didn’t show the really rudest side.

I decided that it probably wasn’t hugely useful to have a hat that was just plain rude.  What happens if you are going different places over the day and not all of them are places you would feel comfortable wearing such a thing?  For this reason, I have made the hat completely reversible a la the reversible Christmas hat which had different sentiments for different moods.

I did not include the ruder side which says F#$@ IT (with no euphemistic symbols)…

Kicking off Scout/Guide week

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Well, it is Scout/Guide week, at least in Canada, this week (February 16-23, 2014), so it is time to show the Scout hats.  A while ago I posted a couple of flag hats, one of them a Union Jack, the other the Quebec fleur-de-lis.  When I made those, I had planned to do more including a Maple Leaf and probably a Stars and Stripes, but these are the hats that got in the way of that.  Heather saw the Quebec fleur-de-lis and said “too bad you didn’t do it in purple for the Scouts”.  She has been very active in her Scout troop for several years.  She has been to England and on a service trip in Peru with them, as well as on countless hikes and camping trips.  Needless to say, by the time I had made these two hats, I was off on another tangent and I never got back to flags.

I made the Union Jack flag during the London Olympics.  For those of you that have been following me for a while, you have probably noticed that I am a slave to popular cultural events around me when it comes to design ideas.  Whenever a holiday or major sporting event starts impinging on the zeitgeist, I get taken in and go along for the ride.

Now that I am doing the blog, I am often swept into a frenzy of “having” to finish the hat I have thought of because it will only be relevant for the next 24 hours or so…case in point I thought of and cast on the Valentine hat on Thursday, finished it on Friday (Valentine’s day) afternoon.  As I was casting off the Valentine’s Day hat, the broken heart hat popped into my head….it would only work the next day… I suck in this way.  My friend Ruth said I should pretend I work for a magazine so I can live a few months ahead and do them at my leisure, but I am pretty sure I wouldn’t bother.

Happy Valentines Day

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This is actually the third iteration of this hat.  It is a version of the skull hat that I started the blog with back before Halloween.  After I made the skull hat, Heather commissioned an alien hat.  She wore it a lot and I always meant to photograph it properly but sadly it has gone AWOL at this point.  I only have a pretty ropey picture of her in it…

A couple of valentine hats

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These are two hats I did quite a long time ago that work with valentines coming this week.  I made the one on the left first and was not happy with the result.  I tweaked things a bit and made the other one, which I was happier with and have shown in two views.

Back to basics…felting again

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I decided to work out how to do a bit of a brim on a basic felted hat shape.

Basic felted hat with brim

Basic felted hat with brim

This hat could probably be used as a base for decoration like the pillbox, but I am showing it plain first.

Do it yourself: Patons Classic Wool size 4 1/2mm needles

Brim:  Cast on 200 stitches,  I worked the brim in garter stitch…knit one round, purl one round, decreasing was done on every other knit round (4th, 8th, 12th,16th and 20th rounds). There were 10 stitches decreased evenly around on each of the 5 decrease rounds, and the decreases were staggered each time.

Body: When you down to 150 stitches, continue in stocking stitch (knit every round) until work measures 9 1/2″ (24 cm) from the beginning.

Top: Next round *knit 27, slip 1, k2 tog, psso* repeat around (this will dec 10 stitches around).  Knit 2 rounds plain.  *knit 25, slip 1, k2 tog, psso* repeat around.  Knit 2 rounds plain….continue in this manner doing the decreases with two plain rounds between until after the row with *knit 15, slip 1 k2 tog, psso* at this point start putting only one plain round between until the round with *knit 3, slip 1 k2 tog, psso* after this round, keep knitting 2 together constantly until you have 7 stitches left.  Break your yarn and pull it through.

Run a string round the point at which the brim meets the body of the hat.  Pull it to the correct diameter for your head and tie with a reef knot.  Send the hat through the washer, dryer, and washer with laundry.  Dry on a form.

I got that graphic feelin’…

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…at least I must have when I made this hat.  I remember someone saying that their wife would have trouble looking at it for any length of time.

I made this hat quite a while ago, I am not sure exactly when.  It has been kicking around for a long time.  I made it back before I was a real ripper outer because I remember thinking at the time that I should have started the decrease later but it was “too late”.  I wouldn’t do that nowadays…it would be redone within the hour (or whatever length of time the redo took).  Actually I don’t think it is too bad because looking around in the world at large, I see that people have all sorts of preferences for how low hats come, and this would probably be in the wheelhouse of many people that weren’t me.

I started with knit 1 purl 1 rib in maroon and knit for 1 1/2″ (3cm) then increased the number of stitches by 50% and did the larger chequerboard pattern.  I did four repeats then joined back into the cast on row with a rolled rim.  I then decreased back to the original number of stitches and continued up.  I used four double decrease points at the top.