The cat in the hat

This weekend I am mostly thankful for not being dragged up a Mountain. This time last week I was somewhere walking up Snowdon in Wales. "Come for a walk" they said, "it will be fun!" they said. What was presented to me as an "easy" walk turned out to be eleven miles. E-l-e-v-e-n miles! The top had snow, lots of snow & lots of wind. I wasn't prepared for this. Today I've stayed indoors, tucked under a blanket, just to make up for that.


I did do a bit of climbing which while scary was also jolly fun. Again, today I'll be staying indoors, tucked under a blanket, just to make up for that.


I don't usually put my face on my blog, but for the purposes of taking photos of hats there's not really any alternative and there's no one else who's going to model for me.  Except my fluffy owl :)


This is actually the second hat I made...  The first was meant to be a white panda hat from a free Deramores pattern.  I'm pretty sure I followed the pattern exactly but clearly it was meant for a giant with a giant head.  I wish I'd taken some photos before I frogged it, it looked like some sort of bank robbers mask!!!

So, I found another pattern on Ravelry which has ear flaps - hurrah!  This pattern called for using DPNs at the end and I even managed that!  At the end of every round I had the right number of stitches - this has never happened before!


Look at those decreases :)


It was only at the end I realised I'd started to decrease way too early and the hat was pitifully small.  It's destined to be fluffy owls hat now (cos he really needs one right?)

I cast on again straight away...  This time I knitted many many rounds, certain it would be long enough.


Ta dah!  Well not quite, there's more work to do but IT FITS!



And this was my progress from last night - ears!!


I'll be writing up my own pattern at some point.  It's obviously a modification of the one from Ravelry but I had to adapt it to use 4mm needles and your good old DK yarn which I figure this is the most common yarn / needle size in the UK.

I've made a nose and I'm now on the hunt for some buttons for eyes...  Watch this space :)

x x x x

"Little Woollie" Inspired Cushion

I've taken the day off to keep J company who's had to phone in sick :( I suspect it's a 24/48 hour man flu but TLC had definitely been on the menu. I'm glad of the day off though as it's given me more time to do thing things I didn't get to do on Saturday when I went off rock climbing to Windgather Rocks in Derbyshire.

I haven't been outdoor rock climbing much, mostly due to the weather and other commitments from our two more experienced climbers. The weather was fantastic but absolutely freezing, and if it hadn't been for Milo I think my hands might have dropped off.

Milo has been our climbing companion several times now, even if he can be a pain in the arse!  He nearly tripped up some poor man who's day might have been severely ruined!

So today between supplying J with food an drink I've been busy knitting up a hat, but as I don't have any photos to show you I thought I'd share my Little Woollie inspired Cushion progress instead.

The stripes have taken a bit of a hiatus since getting the knitting bug again, but here's where we are:

 

The first several rows are basic Double Crochet (US Single Crochet) which I really love.  I was going to do the whole thing like this but changed my mind.  The 6th row from the top (pink/ Stylecraft Shade Fondant) is a row of Treble Crochet.

 

This stitch I think is a Double Crochet Cluster?  I'm not sure but all the patterns are on  Little Woollies blog which is where I'd be heading if I were you :)  There are also loads more patterns / stitches that I haven't used yet and probably won't as this is such a small project.

 

Now this stitch is one of my all time favourites now.  I absolutely love it!  It's called Bobble Stitch but I think I've also heard it with another name.  It's so easy to do but looks so cute!

 

Lastly are some chevrons which aren't quite finished.  I think there should be another row like the pink to square it off.  Then I'm probably going back to some regular Double Crochet for a good while.

 

Here we go!  I've realised just how wonky my granny square is but I'm not too fussed.  I did see a great tutorial (afterwards...) about how to stop this - if I could remember where from I'd share the link, but I think the idea was you didn't start a new round in the corners, start along the sides in complete randomness :)

 

 I'm going to get back to hat knitting now.  I'm absolutely bursting to finish it and share with you.  Lets just hope I don't have another "Goldilocks" moment.  I'll give you a clue: Too big, too small, just right?

Night!

x x x x

Pink birthday bunting & a million projects

The urge to blog has suddenly hit and I thought I had precious little to share but it turns out that looking at my camera has proved otherwise & I do have a few things! There is a beautiful sunset outside right now*, I love living up so high and getting the maximum daylight possible, it really makes me happy!

It's not rolling hills or anything special but I quite like it anyway.


I'm slightly sad that the days are getting shorter again and it reminds me of how fast this years sped by. I've no idea what's up with 2012 but I feel like it's been here all of 5 minutes. J spent the first 6 months living away in London so I guess that was a bit weird but things are very much normal now he's home :)


Last week was my Mums birthday. Happy Birthday Mum! She reads my blog. Sometimes. I think! Anyway, I bought some lovely fabric back in April which I blogged about here which was meant to make bunting for a friend (and it still will) but my Mum was literally swooning over it - I think she might have tried to steal it from me as well - so that confirmed I needed to make her some too.


I don't have many photos because I frantically took these on the morning I needed to wrap and post it for it to arrive on her Birthday - the day before!! My Mums mission is to do this for me now :)



The buttons are from ebay and the ricrac that I tried to fancily wrap it with is from my box-of-bits-and-bobs :)


The only thing is now I want some too!! J will definitely say we have too much bunting but is that really possible? No I didn't think so.

Next time I may have an update on my Little Woollie Inspired cushion, or possibly the hat I'm knitting or maybe that Green Garden Grannies cushion I started or the other ribboned stockinette cushion I haven't finished or the new crochet project I started on Saturday - HOW have I ended up with so many WIPs again?! Seriously.

x x x x

*Haha, it's raining now but still sunny - see, totally British, I just can't help myself talking about the weather because that's exciting :p

Hooky handles

Cold!!! It's gone all cold now and I don't like it

>:-[
Okay... There are *some* things I like about it. I like snuggling up under my blankets, wearing gloves and scarves and my nice new red duffel coat. I also like those clear crisp sunny days but I also like those clear *warm* sunny days; I am definitely a warm loving person. Still, this can only mean that Christmas will be here soon & I love Christmas.

This was our beloved pancake stack on Sunday morning. Mmmmmm!

I don't really have much to show you from the land of knit & crochet, mainly because I don't want to get out of my blanket to photograph the stripes of my Little Woollie inspired cushion but I'm excited to say I learnt how to do bobble stitches last night and I'm very excited about it indeed!

One thing that I have been doing, which involves having the oven on and thus heating the house, is making handles for my new crochet hooks. I forgot how strange it is to crochet with a handle now that I'm so used to having them, so when I tried using my new Boyes hooks it just wasn't happening!

I bought some Fimo from ebay which arrived at the weekend and made 5 handles on Saturday. I waited for some green to arrive (the shop sent me white instead by mistake but I got to keep it for free which was a bonus!) because I was going to make one in every colour but the yellow and orange just didn't do it for me so I've kept to a narrower palette instead.

Fimo is great, it only takes about thirty minutes to set and then voila! Beautiful crochet hooks.

For anyone interested in making their own it's really easy.

1. I rolled the main colour into a round ball first so it had no creases or lumps and then rolled it into a sausage shape.

2. Push the hook through the Fimo, be careful not to break through it but if you do repeat step 1!

3. Roll tiny balls of white Fimo and gently press into the handle.

4. Roll across a flat surface, preferably with something other than your hand - I used a Tupperware lid until the dots lay flush with the handle.

5. Neaten up both ends, I used my fingernail to flatten the Fimo where the hook itself pokes out because my last hook handles were a bit of a mess here.

6. Bake and try not to get too excited!

 

I think you should all pop over to see Tiny Tin Bird on Little Tin Bird aka Heather's blog to see her gorgeous new baby! She is keeping us all very well updated and he isn't even two weeks old :)

x x x x

The City that never sleeps

YaWn! I am SO tired right now, something to do with having returned from this amazing city a few days ago :)


We didn't get up til 1pm today and 2pm yesterday - shocking!! I feel very jet lagged but all is good. While we were away J & I got a new camera which has a tilt-shift setting that I absolutely love. It makes things look like little miniature models! I won't bore you with hundreds of photos you'll already have seen before, so hopefully these are a little different.

Time Square! Apparently a little seedy back in the 70s, it's now the place where everyone seems to converge of an evening. I loved walking here most nights when we came in 2008 (we stayed literally a couple of blocks away), this year we stayed out in Queens but we managed a good few trips here :)

Our trusty number 7 train in and out of Manhattan

Cony Island

We went in May last time and the amusements were closed! It was quite eerie and I was the only person on the beach but at least the aquarium was open. A very different story this time.

The Staten Island Ferry

Probably the best free way to see the Statue of Liberty!

I came back with American Candy - I love the packaging!  Milk Duds are very yummy and we scoffed at least two boxes of pancake mix while we were away, they're so much fluffier than the ones we make in the UK.

And a modest purchase from Michaels craft store which is quite simply the most brilliant place ever :D

I've got a nice shiney set of colourful crochet hooks now that are crying out for some new handles... I even got something for another giveaway... More on that another time!

Being New York I didn't have much time to be bored, and I seem to be getting more and more motion sick, so despite taking supplies for the flight I didn't crochet a whole lot but I've made a start on a Little Woollie inspired cushion - I've just seen that she's doing a crochet-a-long for my most favourite blanket ever and I'm gutted I've missed it but I might try and catch up, or just save the pattern. Anywho :)

The colours are Stylecraft again - lets be honest I have so much I think very little of what I make's going to be anything else :-p I'm using Pomegranate, Fondant, Clematis, Meadow, Cloud Blue, Sherbet & Cream at random. I think the back may have to be stripes :)

I need to go and do all that fun post holiday stuff now, washing, getting ready for work tomorrow... What fun! Hope you've all had a good week or two, I'll be back soon with more hooky fun!

x x x x

Chunky mustard snood ta-dah!

So I've just realised that I never posted anymore about my chunky mustard snood I was working on! It just totally disappeared off the blogging radar :(


So for a recap the first and only post about it is >> here

After realising it was completely twisted (and thinking it would be fine) I realised it wouldn't be fine at all. So a note to anyone using circular needles, do not twist your cast on row!!

I frogged it and then knitted the first ball on a coach to London and finished the rest at my folks house. A *very* cramped coach. I made a friend though called Johnny who was quite bemused by my knitting! Another note - circular needles are fantastic for knitting in a confined space, unlike my long regular needles which I poke other passengers with and profusely apologise for...

So this is my snood in all its chunky, curly, knitted glory


And this is me boiling because in typical Nicole fashion I finished it in the middle of summer :)


It's going to be a great winter warmer though :)

The yarn is "seriously chunky" by Cygnet in Barley shade 4884 (I think it's mustard!!) and I used 10mm bamboo circulars. I'm not sure how many I cast on, it was trial and error really but it wasn't many given the thickness of the yarn.

x x x x

Thank you :-D

I'm so overwhelmed with your amazing comments on my blanket I really am! Second to snuggling up in it these make it SO worth every second spent - thank you!

I was just checking too that I linked the pattern to Attic 24 and I did so that's good, I want to spread the hexagon love far & wide, so to anyone who said they'd love to do one I say Do It!!

Now because I'm a bit implusive & tend to have several projects on the go at once, I've not gotten round to showing you this one!


Back when I started a second pink snood for a friend, I tried and tried and tried to knit ribboned-stockinette-stitch from a pattern that I found here. I'd seen a cushion in Next which I think was the same stitch and I'm sure I took a photo but having spent almost the last hour searching I've given up. It's not on their website either, but needless to say I saw it and thought "I could do that."

It looked very much like this!

Now for the life of me I just couldn't get it right, so in the end I gave up and my friends snood's is regular stocking stitch. However... I couldn't let this beat me! So with some chunkier yarn I tried again... Woo hoo, it started to come together!

This is what you'd call the "front" although the reverse is equally as lovely - difficult to pick which side to use.


A few more shots of progress...


At first I really needed to use my counter but I've learnt to do it without. It's a little tricky at first but after so many rows you get used to when to knit & when to slip :)


I cast on slightly too many stitches for the cushion inner I have, and I was going to knit two squares so I could have the 'front' and 'reverse' stitch on either side of the cushion, but this probably won't happen now because I don't have enough yarn to make a second square, instead it will have to be a rectangular cushion. I might try to find a way of making it reversible...

Have you tried making your own project based on something you saw? If you have I'd love to see it!

BBFN x x x x