I am obsessed with this yarn!

These three hats came from one 300g ball of Bernat Blanket. I bought it on sale for about $7 at Michael's, and there will be several more brought home today, if they still have them. This is great for charitable knitting. I initially wanted to do chemo hats, but donation sites are inconvenient, and the prayer shawl group I'm joining also does hats for those in need--sick, poor, whatever.

The holey crocheted hat was featured in my previous post. It's done with a 9mm hook, and it's mine for bad/wet/dirty hair days. The pattern is at http://www.gleefulthings.com/blog/?p=3258 Others will be made.

The hat in the upper right of the picture is a medium sized slouchy stocking cap. I used 44 stitches, knit in the round on a 16" circular needle, US size 13 or 9mm. It fits me, but not Kent.

The hat in the lower right is a large sized hat from the same pattern as the medium. The only difference is I started it with 48 stitches and made it just a little bit shorter and less slouchy. It fits Kent.

The pattern for the two stocking caps is found here: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/L32214C.html?noImages=0

They're both going to be donated at the first group meeting I will be attending next month.

The little square was knit with the remaining yarn from the ball. I wanted to see how it would behave with US 11 or 8mm needles. It's downright luxurious to feel, and it would be very warm. Knitting a shawl with this tighter gauge would be very cozy.

This yarn is 100% polyester, machine washable and dryable at low heat and delicate settings, and categorized as Super Bulky, or 6. The closeup shows the size relative to a penny and highlights the chenille texture. It's like knitting with pipe cleaners, except the core is a strong thread instead of a metal wire.

The yarn comes in big balls of 300g, approx 258 yards. http://www.yarnspirations.com/blanket.html

On this site you will also find Bernat Baby Blanket. It's the same yarn, just in colors more suitable for baby items. The baby shades also come in 100g / 86 yard balls, and there is also a Holiday category that comes in the smaller balls.

Slouchey Hat

I decided the cotton hat I had crocheted was too small. I've cleaned up the finishes on it, and I plan to give it a bath and donate it to a cancer center for some lady or child with a smaller head.

This morning, as I was wrapping my wet hair in a scarf to leave for work, I thought it would be nice to have a hat that is loose, made of quick-drying synthetic fibers, and full of holes. If arranged properly, it might just enhance some curls as my hair dries. I found this free pattern, titled Waffle Cone Slouchy Hat at:

http://www.gleefulthings.com/blog/?p=3258

It's made with super bulky (category 6) yarn. The pattern suggests Lion Brand Hometown USA or Wool-Ease Thick and Quick. It requires about 80 yards. At the store, they had a few unpopular shades of Bernat Blanket on sale for $6.99 for about 280 yards. This yarn is sort of like a chenille, and it's 100% polyester. I find acrylic to be itchy. Now that I've made it once, I could knock out another in about three hours.

Here's a close-up of the hat without the model.

With what I have left, I'm going to knit a unisex hat to donate. I think this yarn would feel very soft and nice on a tender head. It will need to be tightly knit, so a person with hair loss won't have their skin showing through. There are a couple of patterns I'm considering. I'll keep you posted.

Crochet hat from www.crochethooksyou.com

I had this huge ball of yarn I bought when I first started knitting. It's a fairly rough cotton, suitable for dish cloths. I'd like to start knitting or crocheting hats for people undergoing cancer treatments, so I used the scratchy yarn and made one for sport.

Using up the yarn from Elsa's hat.

I also finished off the yellow ball. Two yarns with three stones. I had toyed with the idea of using the yellow along with the variegated stuff in making Elsa's scarf, but I decided against it. I was having enough trouble with one color.  Kasia picked the hat yarn, and since she has some color blindness, I wanted to use yellow, because I know it's one she can see well.

I need to learn to incorporate different colors into my knitting and crochet. This is a scalloped edge I put on a garter-stitched wash cloth, following instructions from the Very Pink Knits Youtube channel. When I knit the cloth, I tried out the technique of slipping the first stitch on every row to create a nice even edge. Then I covered it up. I guess it would have been worth the trouble if I was going to leave it without a border.

Here's a little more detail. You do a single crochet, skip a stitch or row, then do five double crochets in one space.

Then I decided to try some stripes with a single-crochet cloth. I bordered it with double crochets all around.

Finally, I finished off both yarns by doing the old tried and true diagonal cloth. I overestimated what was left of the yellow, so I ended up ripping it back to the 39th row after completing the 66th or so. I used larger needles because I was trying to conserve the yarn. In doing so, I realized I ended up with a much thinner, lighter cloth (duh) that way. If the yarn isn't going into the fabric it knits up looser and thinner. Who'd a thunk it?

I looked around for a method to incorporate crochet into the inner rows that end up with some pretty lacy holes due to the way the stitches are increased and decreased in knitting the diamond. I didn't find any, and I messed around with trying to figure it out on my own without success. Here's a closeup of the holes.

One is supposed to crochet with a hook of the same diameter as the knitting needles. I tried various edges, but I ended up with a Goldilocks problem. My border was either too tight and puckered up the knitting, or it was too loose and created little ruffles. The striped crocheted cloth above has a slight ruffle problem.

This cloth was knit with 6 mm needles. I tried various combinations of singles, doubles, half-doubles, and chaining between the holes. I eventually settled on simply putting two single crochets in each of the large holes just inside the edge, leaving the next set of holes as they were. If I did this with a 6 mm hook, it was too tight. If I tried to loosen it up by chaining between each set of two singles, it was too loose. I finally finished it by putting the two singles in each hole with nothing in between, but with a few extra chains to turn the corners, using a 6.5 mm hook. I still got ruffles, but by then I was ready to go to bed, and my washcloth was getting pretty fragile from all the crocheting and ripping, so I declared it done.

I'm done knitting dish/wash cloths for now. For my bus projects, I'm going to bring along my giant ball of ivory and practice crochet stitches from a book of blankets for toddlers that I bought, so I'll be good at it when I start the pastel colored blanket. Remember my gauge swatch? I'm going to make several different 9" x 9" swatches, but all of different stitches.

I also have this cute little kimono planned, in a light gray cotton yarn. I need to get it started so she can actually wear it.

Needless to say (Needles to say?), nothing else is getting done around here.

I'm inserting another picture of the scalloped edge because I don't know how to tell facebook which picture to use in links, and it seems to want to use the last one.

Next up: Mobius Cowl FAIL

Update: I wore this once, decided I hate the way it curls up and the fact that it's too long and skinny. I intended to unravel it and use it again, but when I tried to make a cut to get the process started, I ended up with something that wouldn't unravel. It's in the trash now. RIP.

Here's what I'm making with the free yarn I got when I took a crochet class at JoAnn Fabrics. It has six rows of garter stitch on the bottom for stability, and I hope when it gets near the end I'll be able to top it off with another six. It depends on whether I can accurately eyeball when I have six rows left on the ball.  Actually, I suppose I could measure the next round to see how much yarn is used and mark the spot on the ball where there will be just enough for six rows and a bind-off.  Guess I'm a genius or something.

I read about this in a pattern for a kid's cowl. You make it Mobius by purposely giving the stitches a twist before joining. The thing that all knitting in the round projects warn you against. With this off-white yarn that is wrapped with tiny strands of brown, black, and grey, it gives a nice tweedy look on the purl side.

I'm not a fan of acrylic, and I would not have purchased this yarn for myself, but it's pretty easy to work with, and it should be fairly warm for this job. And it was free. Free is good.

This is how it turned out. I'm just going to have to quit improvising and actually follow patterns. I thought by cramming as many stitches on the circular needle as I could, I'd get a dense knit. Nope, it just makes for a bigger circle. This is not going to be a scarf. More like a fat necklace. It's still somewhat decorative.

Red Heart Sashay

Every needleworker needs to make one of these at some point, right? I picked up a ball of this stuff on sale for less than $3.00.

The yarn does all the work. It's actually a net that's a couple of inches wide. You simply knit it in rows of 3 or 4, or you crochet it. Instead of manipulating yarn between knitting needles or around a crochet hook, you use the little ladders that are along the top edge. Here's what it looks like off the ball.

To crochet, you catch up 10 of the ladders on your hook, and you pull the one closest to the hook end up through all the others. That's why it ruffles. Then you catch up 10 more until the whole ball is gone.

If I had knitted it, I would have put four of the little ladders on a needle and start knitting away. It seemed a little more complicated, what with having to manipulate the yarn all in a wad.

It's supposed to be about a 2 hour job. I'm sure I spent more than that.

Cheers!

It really did turn out better.

Grandpa delivered it today, and wonder of wonders, it fits! Our lovely model is detailing the purl side. You know, the one with all the woven-in yarny bits. She makes it beautiful.

Finished this one yesterday. It's definitely not going to be as loose as the rib knit one. I actually hope it's loose enough to comfortably go over her head and hug her neck just a little bit.

What I hope is a better neck warmer

Finished this one yesterday. It's definitely not going to be as loose as the rib knit one. I actually hope it's loose enough to comfortably go over her head and hug her neck just a little bit.

Pot Holders Are Hard!

It looks simple enough. Cast on 28 stitches, then knit it until it's a square. See those three strands of yarn coming out to the right? I'm knitting with them together, as if they constitute one strand. It's a good thing I chose to use straight needles, because manipulating these tight, tight stitches involves some bracing of the needle against something stationary, and that wouldn't be possible with the circulars. Each stitch requires some scootching of the stitches up to the ends so that one can be slipped off carefully. It takes some force, so I can't just trust that a simple swipe of the right needle will get only the one I want. The bad news is that it's very slow going. The good news is that it won't take nearly as many rows to get the length I need as it would if I were knitting with a single strand of yarn. The tightness of the the stitches is what will make it a good, thick piece of material that can be used for handling hot things.

I finally finished the little buggers. First and last set made with three strands.