Geek hat

I recently had the very enjoyable experience of knitting a hat on commission. A friend liked my robot hat and wanted a duplicate for her husband, until we started talking about other possibilities. This is the design we worked out, using Christine Dumoulin's lovely charts from her Binary scarf.

The hat is just a basic toque, with a turned up ribbing & eight decrease points forming a swirl.


You can see the round ends -- it also shows you where to start reading, if you can read bits. Probably I should have done the green lines jogless, but that's not a technique I've used much.

Here's the hat flat:


I would make a few changes if I were to do this again. I'd either eliminate the plain rounds between the ribbing & the green line so it could be worn with the ribbing down, or I'd put in a fold line. I think the turnup isn't crisp enough. And if I did plan for a turned up ribbing I'd use one or two more plain black rounds, because the ribbing is just slightly longer than the black stockinette section as it stands.

Here's the hat with the ribbing down -- sadly droopy looking.

Much better, but it would be nice to see the bottom green line.

I used June Hiatt's Double Needle Cast-on (p. 133 in Principles of Knitting) which was pesky to do but just wonderful once finished. There's no constriction in the lower edge at all. I'll be using this on my next pair of top-down socks for sure.

quick project

Quickie hat for someone who needs a warm head now! That someone has a much bigger head than does my model, but if I made this again I'd make a smaller brim, and probably not switch to maroon until I started the robot chart. I'd also use a different yarn -- this is red heart (black & white) and walmart house brand (maroon) but I was housebound by an ice storm & needed to start Right Away. It'll do to be getting on with.

Back in October ....

... Charlotte decided that her sixth birthday party would be an homage to Spirit : Stallion of the Cimarron. I modified a simple fleece balaclava pattern from Anne-Mette Hermansen's so-useful book Happy Hats & Cool Caps: To Sew for the Whole Family by adding horse ears & inserting yarn along the back seam:


(There was a reason why the little horses were riding stick horses, but it only made sense if you were six.)

I made tails by making large, simple tassles & pinning them onto party guests' pants. These were less successful; several just fell apart. But they lasted through the party, at least.

I don't know what traditions are elsewhere, but around here when your child has a birthday party, they receive presents from the guests and hand out "goodie bags" full of edible treats and junky toys of dubious amusement value. I don't like to pass them out and I don't like to have my kids bring them home -- the contents are usually junky but the cost adds up surprisingly quickly. So whenever possible I like to make something that our party guests can take home & play with later. The horse hats seemed just right this year.

Charlotte's birthday is only a week before Halloween, so as soon as I finished the horse hats I moved right on to make George's mummy costume:


(This is his favorite lurching undead pose.)

Here it is with the headpiece:


It's made of strips of muslin, sewn and/or hot glued to a pair of pajamas. (My sister made a costume like this on a sweatsuit base, but she lives in a colder part of the country.) The headpiece is built on a balaclava with the nose bit cut out.

It was a hugely successful costume, and very durable, too -- George spent a lot of the evening hiding under one of the cars, then "rising from the dead" as trick or treaters passed by, and the costume showed hardly any wear & tear at all.

Given the amount of sewing her party had required, I was kind of pleased that Charlotte decided the PERFECT costume was a $6 Target witch outfit:

A New Year

Where does the time go? It slips by so quickly -- the hours, days, weeks, months. It's the same for all of us, I suppose.

I have been very busy with our remodeling, the holidays, daily life, and even fiber pursuits. I've actually gotten quite a bit of weaving, knitting & spinning done, but haven't taken the time to blog it in months.

The last time I wrote was just after the November art market, as I was planning the things I would weave for the December market. As it turned out, the December market was much like the November one --lots of interesting things for sale but not very many shoppers. It was held indoors, in a space that would be lovely for a wedding reception but which was too dark & too far off the beaten path to make a good marketplace. It didn't help that there was a big craft fair going on about half a mile away, just as there had been in November, AND a big arty/crafty market up in Oklahoma City. Too many venues for too few customers.



I sold two more scarves, several bookmarks, a couple of lavender sachets, and several tree ornaments. Again, it was enough to cover my costs but not much more than that. It was interesting, but I'm not sure whether I will do it again. On the other hand, I have more than 100 of these little tree ornaments on hand so perhaps I have a headstart on next year:

The big surprise for me was how much I loved the overshot that I turned into lavender sachets. I've never been particularly drawn to it in weaving books / mags, but I loved weaving it and loved the way it looked finished. I need to explore this more!

And now it's time to go pick up the children.