Bellsknits

The hat renaissance I wrote about last post continued into this week and I’ve learned a thing or two.

First of all I made a hat for Sean earlier in the week. It’s Stephen West’s Windschief, a hat I’d never seen before but apparently nearly 2000 people on Ravelry have. So I’m a bit slow on the hat uptake! I used some leftover Cascade 220 in the gorgeous Mallard colour.

It was a fun, quick knit. A few bus trips and an evening and it was done. Two days in fact. There were lots of comments on other projects about having difficulty getting length right. That’s because the rib section ends up much longer than plain section at the back and determining which part to measure is a bit of a bugger.

Truth be told it is a bit long for him and could have stopped a good half inch before the crown shaping. But he likes it and I’ll know better next time.

Then, knowing Sean’s dad was coming for the weekend to help us with some yard work (and eat and drink with us! Something we always do well together) I buckled down to make him a hat. I almost repeated the windschief but decided to try something else. This time it was The Boy Hat, another popular pattern and a freebie. It’s a nice 4×4 rib pattern that ends nicely on the crown. I really like the way it all flows to the finishing point. This is also Cascade 220. Great hat yarn!

I really had a feeling my father in law had a small and not particularly long head, which I still think is true now that I’ve put the hat on him but it could have been a bit longer. I’d been afraid of repeating the ‘too long’ problem with Sean’s hat and so erred on the side of caution and his dad’s hat came out a bit too short.

He said he liked it but I think when I saw him working out in the freezing temps yesterday wearing a hat I made him about seven years ago, which is paint splattered and dusty but sits down well over his ears, I knew that if I make another one for him it’ll need to be longer.

It may look like they’re both dozing in the sun but actually they were trying their hardest not to crack up at the idea of being asked to pose side by side. There were wise cracks galore and much pretence that this was embarrassing and silly, but actually I think they enjoyed indulging me.

After I worked all week on their hats (and cooked big, hearty meals for them) it was the least they could do!

Bells

I’m in the middle of some big projects which need long bouts of knitting to see much progress. There’s not a lot to say about them yet and I’m struck with a sense some days of not much forward motion.

That kind of knitting is satisfying in its own way, but it doesn’t feed my deeply held need to be constantly finishing things.

Enter my own personal hat renaissance. Why have I never bothered with hats much? I’ve pondered this and I think it’s because I knitted beanies when I started knitting and while they were good to learn on, and always well received, I soon grew bored and have continued to see them as basic knitting without much oomph or fun.

Then I knitted a couple of berets. I decided I liked knitting them and, surprisingly, also wearing them. They were fast and fun and there were more possibilities out there than I’d ever really noticed. It sent me off in search of other hats.

I came across a collection of 20 kids hats by great hat designer, Woolly Wormhead, called Bambeanies. It’s full of great and striking patterns in a range of styles but the one that caught my eye from the start was a pretty little number called Queenie. It was, as you might have guessed, earmarked immediately for Alice, whose mum asked me for a new hat recently.

Here it is. Started Friday night, finished Saturday night, it’s a winner, made from a single ball of delicious Zara.

The other thing about hats that I never really factored in before is the way they use up random balls of yarn you have in your stash – the ones where there isn’t enough to make anything substantial so they languish. It strikes me as so astoundingly obvious now and yet I never looked at random balls of yarn and thought ‘hats’! Crazy. I don’t know how old this ball of grey Zara is – I’m guessing possibly five years. I had two balls and I’m so glad one of them is finally used up for Alice.

She calls it her Star Hat because of the way the crown looks.

You know the other great thing about this hat? I’d say about three of the stitches were made by Alice herself. Something has changed recently – she gets what I’m doing. She actually looks on and asks if what I’m making is her for her. She takes the needles in her hand (note to self: avoid this when knitting complex lace) and with my hands over hers we knit stitches. After a weekend of this, I half expected her to tell her parents today that she made it!

I think the knitting lessons can’t be far off. OK, maybe a year or two. I think I was five when I learned the first time and produced a crooked, holey scarf for my dad.

Part of the reason I rushed this hat was because she was here and I wanted to give it to her straight away. But I also wanted us both to have hats to wear to the Old Bus Depot Markets Celebration of Wool day today.  She came along, draped in knitwear (as was I) and learned to smoosh skeins of yarn like a pro. ‘Mmm smooshy’ she’d say. Heart melting.

Just perfect. I have two more hats either on the go or lined up to go (for Sean and a friend). I just never thought I’d feel this way about them. It’s unexpected and rather nice!

Bells

Dear Alice,
Because you’re three and don’t yet have terribly strong ideas about what you want to wear (unlike everything else in your life, about which you have very fixed views) I think I can get away with knitting matching cardigans for us. Just for fun.

One day, many years from now, I imagine this will be the last thing you’ll accept from me, but right now I’m getting away with it and you did seem so happy when I gave you a new cardigan this morning and we saw that we matched.

“We’re the same!” we declared when I put it on you and we had a big hug. You didn’t know or care that the patterns weren’t the same. You just wondered why you had different buttons to mine.

Then we headed out into the cold autumn wind, both rugged up in our lovely red woollen cardigans and enjoyed a day at the Collector Pumpkin Festival.

You met some kid sized scarecrows and called the little stone church a castle. You made a beeline for the giant pumpkins and posed while the ABC TV crew filmed you. You had no idea.

Best of all you got to fly a kite in that cold, biting wind. It was all you wanted. The long string of kites was tied to the ground and you and all the little kids who joined you thought you were really sending it into the air. It was the closest you were going to get to really flying a kite and you were so, so happy.

Today was great fun. You were fabulous company and as we walked along holding hands and wearing matching cardigans, I felt so very proud to be an aunt who knits for someone so happy and lovely.

You may not always want to wear matching knitwear with me, but I hope I’ll always get to knit for you.

Love Aunty Bells
xo

ps her cardigan is made from the leftover Bendigo Rustic 12ply from my Seamair cardigan. It’s a mini version of the well known Mr Greenjeans cardigan. It’s called Little Miss Greenjeans and I made it in five days. Truly a fast and satisfying project! The sleeves are a little long but that just means it might still fit her next winter!

I’ve just spent three wonderful days with my eight year old nephew, Willem. He came from interstate to stay for the school holidays. He left this morning and the house is oddly quiet and empty (although I’m feeling unwell so the peace and quiet will do me good, I’m sure).

I worked hard to finish what should have been his birthday present in time for his visit, and I got there, but how I got there is a tale of woe. I’m not sure how to write about it without sounding like I’m trashing a pattern and a great designer so I’ll be careful, because the designer is someone whose work I respect and admire.

Here is the finished item – the Zigvest - made from Rowan Felted Tweed I’ve had in my stash for a while. It looks great but I found it hard to work the cables in this yarn. Something smooth and in a solid colour might have been better.

The designer, Tikki, has been my favourite children’s knitwear designer for the last year or so. I’ve made lovely patterns of hers like Olearia, Jane and Acacia. They’ve all been clever, fun and quick and highly wearable. So I prepared to knit my first boy pattern from her collection with great anticipation. It didn’t really live up to expectations. Whether it was because I wasn’t concentrating (it’s been known to happen!) or it just didn’t gel, I’m unsure, but from the moment I began the zigzag cables I found they didn’t stick in my mind and I had to refer back to the lengthy pattern over and over again, flicking backwards and forwards and never quite getting it right.

Then I started over. Twice. I almost gave up but I didn’t because I hate to be defeated and I really thought it was just me. No one else on Ravelry seemed to encounter problems.

Eventually I got the body done and decided on the collar style neck (it has two options, a v neck and a collar). How I wish I’d chosen the v neck. Without going into lengthy detail, the collar has odd instructions (which Tikki says in the pattern is fiddly – she wasn’t wrong) and it just never sat right but I was happy enough with it.

Then I tried it on him. Willem has that typical large dome shaped head some boys have. It wasn’t going to go over his head so I decided to cut a steek in the back of it. I’ve steeked before, and it was successful but it was four years ago and quite a different experience. Then I knitted something that had a panel worked into it meant for the steeking. This time I was doing it after the fact and well, it all went a bit wobbly. Here’s a photo to show how it looked when I first cut it.

Yes, I know the red yarn really stands out but I couldn’t see how to work a steek in the same yarn and not mess it up entirely. I wouldn’t have been able to see where to cut as easily and I thought the red might be a nice flash of contrast.

All was fine until minutes later when bits of it began to slip out of the crochet chain and it was all so distressing I threw it aside and decided I’d screwed it up and that was that.

A couple of reassuring conversations with my support crew (RoseRed and Tanya in Brisbane) and I pulled out the sewing machine, ran a zigzag stitch inexpertly along the edges and secured it. For extra support I crocheted in the brown yarn (Rowan Felted Tweed) around the opening to make it stick. It’s bulky and ugly but it holds and I hope never to have such a shockingly bad knitting experience again – but undoubtedly I will some day.

Here’s a back view where you can see at the neck, it’s unsightly but it holds. I’m too ashamed to post an up close photo of my dodgy surgery. It holds, it fits. That’s the main thing. And I can learn a lot from this hideous experience.

I’ve learned that I probably should have ditched it when I was having so much trouble and just knitted him a hat. We’d all be a lot happier.

But he’s my lovely, handsome boy and he’s grateful for handknits and he does look so great in brown felted tweed. He finds the neck a bit itchy though so I’ve learned that from now on, Willem gets only the smoothest, softest yarns near his throat. He deserves that.

Next time round, I hope to make him something that results in enjoyment for both of us.

Truly I don’t want to rubbish this pattern because plenty of people have loved it. I think it’s just a case of, as the cliché goes, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ At 28 pages, and written for two different yarn weights, it became cumbersome at times to read the pattern. I know that’s where I failed a few times. Lesson learned: read the pattern through entirely and be really, really careful to make sure you understand all the next steps. It’s near-fatal to not do this.

So this pattern and I just didn’t not mesh. But the result is pleasing enough that I can look at it and feel some pride that I stuck it out.

Bells

ps a note on problems with commenting – a few readers have told me they are finding they can’t comment on posts because WordPress won’t let them. I have looked into this and I’m yet to find a reason why it’s happening. I’m sorry for that. But thanks for letting me know and if anyone who uses WordPress knows how to fix it, please let me know.