So, I know I said no creativity,

but I found some sanity this week. Greg has been home from work a lot, several looming deadlines have passed, and it’s almost like we’re on some sort of vacation. We’ve been thinking more and more about our impending move; this week Greg and I had our birthday and we went out to Benihana. We made a pact with each other that no matter what came across our plates, we would at least try it, and we tried a lot of new and unusual things. For me, it meant my first time eating shrimp (really) we had some California Rolls with wasabi and ginger (Greg had had these before, but all I have to say is seaweed = blech!), and we both tried ‘real’ sushi for the first time. Oh, and we ate our whole meal with chopsticks only (except for the soup, of course. And the birthday ice cream). So, that was fun. We really had a blast. We should be in Japan in less than two months, and that’s…pretty huge.

Anyway, this week I pulled out a ball of anonymous yarn that I got at Yarnivore on clearance; Melanie thought that it was something from Mondial, possibly Maxi. Fortunately, I had Ravelry! It’s great, because I was barely able to find anything about Mondial on the web, but on Ravelry there are pictures, a list of the yarns the brand carries, and information about them like yardage, composition, etc. As it turned out, my mystery yarn was Mondial Kross, a superbulky superwash wool that appears to be made out of 12 strands of 2-ply laceweight gently twisted together. Kind of insane, but very soft and lofty (also prone to splitting, as you might imagine).

I decided to use it to make a hat. I hate working from the brim up when I only have one small ball, so I decided to crochet it, top down. The color, sky blue, was too cheery for me to make a boring old winter hat out of it - I thought of spring. And this spring, I’m going to be in Japan, sitting between the mountains and the Pacific ocean. After a few, er, less than optimal iterations, I came up with a hat that channels the ocean, cool enough to wear when the days start warming up a little.

Can you see the waves? They were a little tricky to get right. Overall, I’m pleased with this hat -

especially the way that the open sections swirl down from the crown. I can really feel the ocean in this design, and that makes me happy.

Miss Me?

I’m gonna be honest, here. I predict that the blogging will be spotty at best over the next three months. Maybe four. We’re counting down to our transcontinental move - every week brings it closer and amps up the stress a little more. I do not have as much energy as usual for creative work. This could be a great opportunity for me, though - to make some of the other people’s designs I keep meaning to make but never find the time for. I still want to make things (it relieves stress, you know) but I need things that I don’t have to make decisions on. My own designs? Out. Math required? Out. Assembly needed? Not a chance.

It was with this set of requirements that I went for another hat, one that’s been in my queue for months.

This was the best modeled shot I was able to get unassisted. I like most how I look happy in the picture. Good times. It does no justice to the beauty that is this hat, though, so here you go -

how gorgeous is that? Pattern is the Greenery Hat, from Lilith Parker’s Lair of Lunacy. Nice! Not charted. I’ve come to really appreciate a good chart. I absolutely love the cables, though; they’re sinuous and organic feeling, and I like the way they grow out of the bottom ribbing. They’re a little like vines, I think, which could explain the name.

It’s a 2-post day

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No - it’s a Quant!

Unblocked, of course. ‘Cause that’s just how I roll. Plus, I’m pretty sure that if I blocked it out it would get even bigger, exceeding the size of my head. It does serve its purpose very well, though, keeping my head and ears nice and warm in blustery winds. (We had some cooler weather the other day, and I tested it out.)

Working with the Noro was really fun. The color changes work beautifully in entrelac, creating the impression that I did more work to get all the differently colored squares. (We always like ‘looks harder than it was’ projects. Yes.) There was only one break in the color repeats - if you look at the right side of the above picture you can see that the teal-through-light-green section repeats itself. Oh, well. I like green.

I did make some mods - first off, I changed the i-cord from three stitches to four. Then I worked the pattern as it was written until it was time to decrease for the other end. I was riding in the car and didn’t have the directions with me. I wasn’t perfectly happy with the way that the pattern directed that portion, anyway. If you look at the original, you can see that the triangular sections between the i-cord and the entrelac look different at each end. I understand that sometimes the differences between increasing and decreasing mean that it will look different if you only mirror, but I like symmetry where I can get it.

So, I worked the last row of triangles by doing a ssk at the beginning and end of every RS row, then only picking up 5 sts on the next edge (total of 6) and repeated across. This resulted in only one live stitch at the very edge of the piece; I picked up across for a total of 18 and decreased to match the other side. As you can see, this resulted in two ends that match very nicely, indeed. Hooray for symmetry!

All in all, there were a few things I didn’t absolutely love in the design. If I were to make another, I’d make it narrower, mirror the ends again, and use a button closure like Calorimetry instead of the i-cord ties. (They’re kind of bulky under my hair.) I can see why the designer might have chosen to go with ties instead of a button - I heard enough comparisons drawn between Quant and Calorimetry without yet another similarity. For the record, I don’t think it’s a knock-off design at all, but I think the button would work out better for me.

One more picture before I sign off for the day -

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the Tunisian Cable Experiment.

Free Ornament Pattern!

To distract you from the utter lack of finished Quant photos, here’s a new free pattern!

Check out the Tunisian Mini Hat Ornament over at Inner Child Crochet. It’s made in Tunisian crochet, and it’s such a small, simple project that I think it would be ideal for someone’s first foray into the technique. I made it with the 9 yards of Kureyon I had left over from my Quant (nope, I can’t throw anything away…) and it works up really, really fast.

Of course, I told Max it was a hat and he countered that it was a bell, and began running around the living room with it saying, “DING-ding.” Because that’s what bells say.

At any rate, we’ll see when we can get some pictures of that Quant up here! I really like it, although it’s a bit big for me. I could see myself making another one, tweaked a bit.

Quant-ifiable Progress

After our trip, I couldn’t convince myself to work on anything. I brought two (previously unblogged) projects with me on the trip to work on - a crocheted log cabin baby afghan, and my Cherie Amour, which I’m making from the remainder of the yarn used for Charlie’s hoodie. (I know what you’re thinking. Big remainder, right? It was on sale.) But I didn’t want to work on those. And my ‘working space’ stash had been packed up and shoved into the garage. For days, I did nothing yarny, just sluffed around doing things like ‘dishes’ and ‘vomiting’ - oh, right, we all had the flu, too - and sulked about how I wished I had something fun to work on.

Leave it to knitty to cure my funk!

If you haven’t seen it already, check out the pattern for this excellent intro to entrelac - Quant! This is my first time trying it, and the directions are clear enough that I didn’t have any many problems. It was the perfect use, too, for a stray ball of Noro Kureyon that I brought home from my local yarn store last month. There was only one knot in the skein, which obviously interrupted the color transition, but I’m pretending that it didn’t happen. I liked the Noro, otherwise, Vegetable Matter and all!

I’ve actually finished my Quant, but pictures must wait till tomorrow. It was cool and overcast today! I find the cooler weather inspires me to make warm things to wear, and we’re going to need it two months from now when we get to Japan! (That’s rather a lot of exclamation points.)

Hats, Hats…er, only 2 hats.

Good morning, everyone. First order of business - there was an error in the pattern for the Nottingham hat that has been corrected. If you’ve downloaded a copy of the pattern before today, please go download the new one for a more fun time when you’re trying to work the cable.

In other news, several hundred miles north of Texas it apparently gets quite cold in late November. Ha ha. I believe it was in the 60s when I was checking the weather there before our trip - I packed a few warm things I had made, more as an opportunity to wear them than because I thought I would need them. After our trip to Colorado, of course, I knew it would be chilly and made sure that all of us had long sleeves, long pants, and jackets. I really should have thought of gloves. And hats. And scarves. Oh, yes. Fortunately, I brought yarn and implements with me (of course) and was able to make myself a hat when the temperature dropped below freezing.

It’s a hybrid, a combination of knitting and crochet worked from the top down. I think it turned out pretty well, using up one skein of Bernat Felting that I picked up in a pretty color (the color is more accurate in the second photo). Since it’s intended for felting (loosely spun single ply bulky wool), I worked it more tightly than I would have a sturdier yarn. It’s nice! It’s fast!

I took notes.

Hybrid Hat

Materials

• 1 ball Bernat Felting Natural Wool [100% wool, 77m/84yds per 75g/2.6oz skein]
• J/10 (6.00mm) hook
• 1 set of 5 US #8/5.00mm double-point needles

(US pattern conventions used)

Rnd 1: Ch 2, make 8 hdc in 2nd ch from hook.

Rnd 2: [Hdc inc] around. (16 hdc)

Rnd 3: [Hdc, hdc inc] around. (24 hdc)

Rnd 4: [Hdc 2, hdc inc] around. (32 hdc)

Rnd 5: [Hdc 3, hdc inc] around. (40 hdc)

Rnd 6: [Hdc 4, hdc inc] around. (48 hdc)

Rnd 7: [Hdc 5, hdc inc] around. (56 hdc)

Rnd 8: [Hdc 6, hdc inc] around. (64 hdc)

Place live loop on needle, pick up 1 loop from each stitch around, distributing as follows across 4 needles: 17, 16, 16, 16 (65 sts)

Ribbing:

Rnd 1: (All stitches in this round should be worked through the back loop.) Knit across needles 1 and 2. K1, m1, then knit remaining sts on needle 3, k across needle 4. (66 sts)

Rnd 2: [k2, p1] around.

Rnd 3: [k2, purl into the front and back of the stitch to increase] around. (88 sts)

Rnd 4 - end: [k2, p2] around.

Work ribbing until about 4 yds remain, or desired length is reached. Bind off in rib for a neater edge, weave in ends. I blocked my hat lengthwise only to get a little more length. Apparently if you block ribbing horizontally it loses its ‘ribbiness’ and doesn’t hug as well. Made for my own adult sized head.

So there’s one thing I did on my Thanksgiving vacation. It’s December now! Ack! What will I do for Christmas?

Hello, everyone

We took a nice long trip to visit my family over Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoyed your holiday, we did. Your regularly scheduled blogging resumes tomorrow.