Fuck the cold

  
Fuck the cold. 

FUCK THE COLD. 

But now in hat form. My life is complete. I knitted this back in April and forgot about it. I finally wore it for the first time yesterday. People looked at me weirdly. 

The French understand the word fuck in the sexual sense. That’s it.

Made with two half balls of Phildar Charlie. In a grey/beige and green colours. On 4mm needles. Using a free pattern from Ravelry that I’d made for Angela last year. 

Back again!

As I’ve said many a time, life is hectic. Always has been, wouldn’t be anywhere near as fun if it wasn’t and hopefully always will be. 

Recently I’ve changed phone. Now I have an iPhone 6s which makes a change from having a 4. However most of my photos are on the 4. 

I’ve also entered into a CAP petite enfance course, which will qualify me to work with children from July next year. If I pass. I will pass. I hope.

I’m babysitting two lovely kids because of this, one who is nearly three, the other who is nearly four and they are so funny. L is a little girl who always asks questions and is very chatty and R is a little boy who’s more silent but very expressive. It’s two families and I babysit the two kids at the same time. 

And I’m still working out everything with Alexandros. 

Obviously I’m still crafting. Why ever would I have stopped?  

I made this recently which began to get tweaked because I didn’t have the pattern while knitting and lead to me writing up spending very similar for Alexandros. If recommend doing one of these. It’s a great hat and I’ve been wearing it non stop. 

I used Rico Creative Cotton which was a softish cotton to work with and I loved the bright red. Although it’s not my favourite cotton yarn. I also put a bell on the i-cord and tied a wee knot in the end. 

But the cotton caused it to be too big. The cables are all stretched out and it’s huge on me. 

Slouchy no slouch and coffee together

And here is the version I made for kids. My version was mainly based off the photo and reading through the pattern once. The yellow one was more carefully planned and done carefully to be perfect. You can find the pattern for that here for free! It uses Dk wool and I used the lovely WoollyKnit Diggle DK in Gold. And 4mm needles. 
Alexandros was very happy with this hat. I’ve got a photo to prove it. He was playing peek-a-boo with it and everything.   

 

Summer Jacket, almost done

Without buttons, my latest project pinned shut for a photograph

Since summer kind of came out of nowhere it’s now too hot to do much that doesn’t involve cotton, or linen, or I don’t know what that doesn’t make my hands all horrible and sweaty. It’s made worse by the fact my flat is in the roof, therefore gets all the heat. Gah. Currently because it’s too hot to knit I’m making a dinosaur, with acrylic yarn, God help me. This wasn’t a wise decision. After I’d been burgled I couldn’t find my knitting, so I kinda bought this by justifying that if I couldn’t knit I’d drive my roomie crazy.

My balls are ready to go!

Sadly I can’t wear my pretty scarf like creations, or hats, or much, I need to knit myself a summer shawl. But time, and money, and excuses! Instead I made a stunning jacket out of DMC natura just cotton. It came from a lovely wee shop not too far from where I live, but when you think of the size and transport system of Paris, nothing is too far from home. It’s called Une maille à l’endroit which translates to A knitted stitch and seemed kinda cute. They do classes and have a lovely selection of French based yarns, although a little limited, and some very nice needles and buttons. They only had a few colours of the DMC natura and it exists in so many shades.

While I was laying it out to get a few previews. Five colours worked great!

While I was still working on sewing in the ends. That was long and I’m not a fan of seaming, it’s evil.

It’s a 50g ball with 155m designed to be knitted as 4ply on 2.5-3.5 needles, machine washable and loosely spun. I used about five half balls on this jacket in the shades Prussian, Prune, Passion, Giroflee and Chartreuse. I found that this yarn went further than I expected as I was worried I’d have to buy more. I also bought some buttons in a sachet, but I don’t like to because it always works out more expensive. There wasn’t an orange in stock so I had a five colour rainbow to work with.

I worked this on my amazing Knit Pro interchangeable cable needles even though it was all worked flat. I used 4mm to make a loose summer fabric.

A close up of my lovely buttons. I love toggles, so vintage.

I fished out a pattern from January 2015 Simply Knitting with a child’s jacket, I can’t find the pattern on Ravelry, but it was a basic enough hoodie that I tweaked to do what I wanted. And I got a pretty good end result, although I should have just worked the whole thing in garter stitch, because the pattern was a pain in the ass, simple, but annoying enough that if you balls up it’s obvious. I balls up a lot at the moment with the dog to watch, he even pulled a sleeve off my needles while I was knitting it, but that’s another post for another time. I’d rather have worked it in moss or garter stitch. Anyway, I like how this turned out. I’ve got a few more ends to hook in and then those dreaded photos to take, but soon it’ll be up here in all it’s glory.

Sewing on the buttons, it was a long day but wasn’t too bad, the jacket looked great afterwards.

One last thing, I love how this fabric drapes and flows, for a cotton it’s very loose, very liquid. For a cotton mind. It flops I guess would be a better description.

Scandiwegia Revisited

Vanity.

You may remember when I was doing handmade gifts for everyone for Christmas. I made this beautiful hat. I wished I could have kept it. I did write about it here, if you want to read my blog on it.

I promised myself I’d remake it once I had a chance. I was considering what I could change about it, and how to make it more interesting, and then I had the idea of doing it was a rainbow. One day I probably will.

The thing is, I’m not a fan of beanies. However I love berets. So that’s what I did, I tweaked the pattern to make a beret, by doubling the stitches and then following the instructions.

There is a possibility that I’m selling this too. While I was knitting it a friend came up to me and started complimenting it, asking if I’d be willing to sell it. I need money but at the same time I don’t. The real thing is though if I do sell or give away something as simple as a hat I can remake it, I did remake this. And it’s interesting to do a pattern again.

The big rib against the fair isle. I love this.

I love how the grey sets a nice subtle background against the brighter colours. All the yarns are acrylic DK. I used a King Cole Baby Comfort for the grey and the other three were remnants of Phildar Charly, in red, orange and yellow. I used all of the yellow, orange and grey, but still have some red.

I made the rib longer because it was a beret, other wise I followed the pattern almost as printed. When I ran out of grey I used the colours in five row stripes and then finished in red for the decreasing.

The pattern is free from Ravelry, and I really recommend it if you’re looking for a new project. These always come out pretty. It’s here if you’re interested.

I’ve not really got anything else to say, if I’ve forgotton anything it’ll be in my notes. Otherwise you can ask in a comment. Thanks for reading. Enjoy the photos below.

Here you can see the stripes and the top.

And here it was really taking shape.

And an early photo of the fair isle.

Finished Project – Shagging moose hat

I was making a beautiful shawl, from a Debbie Bliss pattern that you can see here. And after a huge disaster with my interchangeable needles coming undone I was forced to unravel the 10cm I’d done in a week. 300 stitches near enough, took me a week and it was ruined. I did write it up here if you really want to see my failure.

I was feeling hugely uninspired and I just wanted something simple that wouldn’t depress me and would help me get rid of some of my acrylic stash. I’d been eyeing this hat for a while after seeing it in a 52 hats challenge group, and I figured I’d go for it. It’s been my third hat this year. I’m now working on my fourth and I still need a pair of gloves…

I had a quick poke though my colours and half thought about making two with inverted colours, one for me and one for Angela, so I settled on a grey from King Cole, Baby Comfort, and a red from Phildar, Charly, both great yarns. I cast on using my 4mm needles for the rib and changed to the recommended 4.5 for the body. Even though I was working with DK I don’t think my tension was too badly out.

This hat is a pattern called Fuck The Cold, exactly how we’re all feeling at winter. it’s free from here and I really think you should knit one. Everyone should. Even your grandma.

I did change a few things, I hid the fuck the cold bit a little by taking out the main colour strip between the stripe and the letters, because I was worried about giving Angela a hat with the work fuck on it. And I made a couple of mistakes in the pattern, but that’s not a big deal, it still looks great.

I did add a pompom too. I like pompoms. I used my amazing Clover pompom marker. They look weird but they’re amazing!

I’ve not got much else to say about this, but you can check out my notes here.

Christmas 2014 – Scandiwegian Star

I didn’t blog this at the time because I was busy with packing to leave for my mum’s, and I only finished it the day before I gave it away. It was the last gift I finished, and it was a bit rushed. So here it is, my Scandiwegian Star. I don’t even know how many gifts I finished in the end. 5? 6? Meh. I did some.

A fair isle star beanie with a pompom. I made it a bit longer than I should have.

Again I was using odds and sods, the black was Charly by Phildar, a cheap but nice acrylic, so was the electric blue. The purple was Robin Double Knit, left over from my Tabitha hat, and the other blue was a Hema cheap thing that I bought for some unknown reason. I love the way these colours work together, the black does seem a bit bold and I’d like to do something similar with a cream, or a white or pale background to see if that’ll bring the colours out more.

The fair isle pattern in progress.

It knitted up very quickly and I wanted to keep it. But then I wanted to keep all the presents I made this year, and I’ve queued them to make myself too.

I didn’t get many photos of me wearing it, but here’s a good shot of the hat with the pompom, pulled down over my face to show the length.

I didn’t really take the time to get brilliant photos of this hat, as it was very rushed and I just wanted to get it finished and get rid of it, but I did it. I made one more Christmas gift and bought a bit of happiness to one more person.

This lovely pattern is also free from Ravelry and can be found here. The projects are beautiful and I really want to make another one. I liked the chart, it was really easy to follow. I recommend having a flick through the projects, there’s some awesome stuff on there. And as always my notes are here.

Christmas 2014 Gift #5 DONE!

A new lace beret, in neon pink!

So the last doily I made into a hat worked out as awesome. I love it and I’m tempted to keep it or make myself another one. I’m still trying to tackle these Christmas presents so I thought I’d grab another doily and make it into a hat, but I’m less keen on this one. It’s okay. I’m not going to bother sharing the pattern because I really am not awed by this, but if you like the doily I’ll give you a link to that here.

I still have my GIANT spot from my last post, it’s been there for almost a week… but even from the front you can see this hat is less pretty that the other one. It’s not as long as I’d have liked either, but I ran out of yarn. It’s done in a mystery acrylic (probably Robin) that I took from my mum’s stash. I had about half a ball and used all of it, working the pattern linked above on 4mm needles. Lace isn’t too bad on a large scale, the thought of doing it on anything smaller than a 2.5mm needle does scare me a bit though. I do like these lace top beret hats though, and I’m hoping to do maybe another one for Christmas, but they’re pretty tiring, as the computer is the pattern source I can’t knit them while out, and with so many stitches it’s a bit difficult to take out in my bag.

I also got the yarn to finish gift #3! Yay!

So this hat took three days, I got the lace done within 24 hours, but spent two days working the body. Part of me loves the colour but part of me finds it stupid on such a lacy pattern and on an adult. I think these hats would look better in more autumn like colours, browns, yellows, deep greens, greys. But that’s for later on. For now I’m doing these out of odd or cheap yarn.

As you can see, the lace pattern is more open in the centre, but more closed throughout. It clearly forms and eight petal flower.

I don’t actually have a lot to say about this hat. I’m not attached, I’m just hoping the person I give it too will like it.

Christmas 2014 Gift #4

Christmas hat #4. Probably the most beautiful thing I have ever made. Maybe even better than my Heliopath vest.

This may not look like much, and it may have been made in a cheap acrylic yarn, but it is so amazing. I used Robin Acrylic, which you can get for around £1.50 a 100g ball if you’re lucky. However now I know that this pattern works, and I completely improvised it. I think after Christmas I may make another one for myself in a cotton based yarn. But we’ll see.

And yes, I know I’ve jumped straight from gift #2 to gift #4. #3 is currently being knitted, but I got carried away.

A while back I got a bit obsessed with doilies. You know, like your grandma will have. Or my mum had in disposable paper. I added about two pages to my Ravelry queue. And I have a friend who has an afro, so her hats need to be pretty big, doilies can get big on 2mm needles, so if I do the same thing on 4mm needles, I’m really onto something here!

And then I had insomnia. It happens sometimes, something bugs me and I can’t sleep. I was looking through my queue thinking that I’d get the third hat finished that night when I stumbled across this pattern, that was the one I wanted to make. So without questioning (I’d come downstairs with a bag full of wool in case I wanted to start a new thing or finished the current one) I cast on. I got to round 25, I messed up. I ripped back, I cast on, I started again. Two days later it was finished.

A better view of the lace

My instructions and project notes can be found here, but I’ll also include them in this post for those of you without Ravelry. The pattern is published online at this blog, you don’t need to log in and it’s free.

So I just cast on 8 stitches and went for it, although there is a fancy crochet cast on there. I then worked the doily on 9dpns. (yup…) until round 54. You could stop anywhere listed though for a shorter hat. I put the work onto a 3.5mm circular needle and just knitted in stocking stitch for 6cm. If you want a slouchier hat this is where you add the length. For one round I did knit one knit two together, putting the count from 180 stitches down to 120. I then did 3-4cm of knit one purl one rib, and finished with 5 rounds of stocking stitch to give it a rolled edge before casting off with a super stretchy cast off. Simple once you’ve done the doily.

And from the front. This is such a beautiful photo, apart from the spot. Damn hormones.

Yes, I would make this again, but not in the acrylic yarn, cotton, wool, anything of high quality with a good stitch definition. I’d even be tempted to try it in sock wool. It is so pretty! It’s had a few compliments while in progress. The best one being “How the hell are you doing that?!” as well as the typical pretty ones.

Making a doily into a hat is challenging, but at the end of the day all knitting comes down to mathematics, and that does make it much easier to think like that. Yes, I am crazy.

This was actually very quick to finish, even though it was too big to put in my handbag, I think the attractiveness of it really boosted me on.

I mean, look, if you were knitting this would you be able to stop yourself?

Yeah, towards the end with 180 stitches it was more difficult, but to begin with it grew so quickly, and I think that’s what pushed me to do it so much. And when it was transportable on the circular needles most of the work was already done. I just had a few more cm to do. Although I got a couple of weird looks in the train, but nobody really knits in France.