FIN: Wine Vaults Hat

This is the Rylands Hat by Patricia Clift-Martin, on Ravelry of course. This is her blog here.

It isn’t a very deep hat to be honest. I thought it would be much more beret-like, with a tiny bit of slouch. None at all though! That’s okay, it’s still a beautiful textural hat. And it is just long enough to ensure the tops of my ears will be toasty. The pattern is fantastically well written though, and if you really wanted a deeper hat, you could just do another set of the pattern.

I called my version Wine Vaults obviously because of the colour. I like that this hat was made in honour of a vaulted ceiling in a Reading Room. It appeals to my sensibility. It's amazing what you can be inspired by!

Oh! And I tried the magic loop method this time, rather than my metal wire and pliers technique. It was easier than I thought. Just goes to show what you can do if you try!

FIN: Yellow Hat

Revel! Ravel! Wheeeeee! Now to wait patiently for photos from new owner in Delhi. Knit speed, little parcel!

And just a quick note on how absolutely awesome Completely Cauchy. is. James Joyce in cross stitch. I want this as a hobby. You can't drop a cross stitch! :D

I Am Not Worthy

This post is to give thanks to my mother. Mothers are generically described as being beautiful human beings without whom we couldn't live. Mothers are complex beings, and I don't like to stereotype them. However, I Truly Could Not Live Without My Mother. Not just because she makes sure I can walk out of the house with matching socks and hole-less underwear. Not just because she made chocolate brownies when I came home. Also because she saved the unsavable; my yellow hat!

Stitches are picked up! And she did it to match the pattern! She is a Goddess among knitters! I am truly not worthy.

That Damned Hat is findable on Ravelry, as is my new project (started to mourn the old one, a potentially vicious cycle really) the Rylands Cabled Hat, which looks a real treat in the red. The wool I have is much darker, a very drinkable wine colour. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

On another note, a while ago I saw My Own Private Idaho for the first time. I have to say, I didn't entirely understand it but it was a madly beautiful and heart breaking ride. This is one of those films that makes me want to see America. Such fantastic scenery, I love the way that Gus Van Sant lingers on it. Also have to love how it lingers on Mr Phoenix and Mr Reeves at times. Can it somehow be possible to see America in the early 1990s? I'll bring my own Docs and flannelette, I promise. Truly, I am not worthy.

Knotting

This picture was my second attempt at making Natalie Larson's Star Crossed Slouchy Beret on Ravelry.

The first time I counted the stitches completely wrong and ended up with a Crossed Star Slouchy Beret. But this second one was yummy, and correctly made!

Which is why I name this post 'Knotting'. I'm borrowing it from Elizabeth Honey's book Fiddle-back in the hope that she is as sweet as her name and won't really mind. The kids in the book try to knit something but end up messing it up so badly that they call it 'knotting' instead. My knitting is largely knotting, and I will explain this through two anecdotes, one relating to the hat above.

First, when my mother was teaching me how to knit back in 2007. She taught me how to hold the needles correctly, and how to hold the thread properly for the right tension. By the time I came to the end of that ugly terracotta coloured rib scarf I thought I'd conquered the world! Alas, I moved away for a year to a different country, away from my mother's patient knitting coaching and thus developed bad habits. Once not long after I got home, we were sitting in the living room with our respective knitting. Mum stopped after some time and looked at me. She then said; 'It gives me pain to watch you knit.' My technique, it seems, was not unorthodox as I had hoped; it was just plain wrong. And continues to be so! Bad habits are tricky to shake.

My second example of knotting, as I mentioned, relates to that glorious squishy blue hat. I am proud of it, despite the labour pains it brought. See, I know there is a Magic Loop method out there when using circular knitting needles. When I youtube it, it looks fantastically easy and straightforward. I would love to be able to knit socks with ML method! (As it is, I can barely knit competently with two needles; four would be far beyond my skill level.) But the Magic Loop method, when competing with my unorthodox/wrong knitting technique has failed me at every turn. If you can help, please tell me how!

I must here confess that when the stitches became fewer and fewer towards the crown of my Star Crossed Beret, there was much swearing and sweating over stretched and strained plastic circular needles. My solution (when I couldn't figure out the ML method) involved raiding my Dad's shed for wire which I fashioned into circular needles. The beauty of those makeshift wire circulars was that when the stitches grew fewer and fewer, I could simply snip off the end of the needles with wire cutters and continue on my merry knotted way.

Terrible, no? But it worked. See that crown? It's a squashy little star. And the recipient of that hat (admittedly a non-knitter) was none the wiser. Viva la Knotting!