Two Baby Hats

For my next-door neighbour, who has produced a wee boy. I improvised the red one, using an online size guide for a newborn and putting a seed-stitch heart on the front.

The second one uses up the rest of the lovely pale-brown alpaca that I used for the blanket on the friendly alpaca I made for a friend's granddaughter.

This time I followed a pattern, "Djvellue", which you can get on Ravelry. I couldn't find the two different sizes of needle normally used, which you need for the garter-stitch border, so I replaced it with TechKnitter's tubular edging, like a tiny brim.

It's a totally charming traditional style with the darling little point over the baby's nose, and the ties under the chin. I quite want a hat like that to wear myself.

Alpaca

This is what I ended up knitting for a friend's new granddaughter. I was in Lillehammer, in Norway, and I walked into a yarn shop looking for inspiration. They had some lovely sock-weight alpaca in soft colours, and on the ball band was a little drawing of a goofy alpaca face.

It looked a bit like this.

So I made one.

He's got a little tail, and a little fluffy hairdo, blue eyes, and a blanket with flowers on.

They also had some wooden circular needles with square cross-section, which are very nice to work with, and since I hadn't brought anything with me and needed to start right away, I got those too. I love Norwegian yarn shops.

There's another animal I made this year which you've missed out on because the photos were destroyed in an SD card disaster. Anyway, it was a pink and purple owl, and there's no other one like it anywhere.

Work in progress

This was going to be a present for a baby, but I was making it and I found myself fighting it. It has rather spooky, foreboding spirit. I wouldn't say an evil spirit, but not a protective spirit. I couldn't give it to a baby - I think it wants to be for someone else.

So I had to stop and make something else for the baby. I'll show you that later. (Luckily I found an idea in a yarn shop in Lillehammer, Norway).

There's some rather subtle non-symmetrical shaping going on here and it's not absolutely perfect, but I'm quite pleased with it. With sock wool it does feel right to use more detail. This is the back:

 

And this is the front:

It's going to need legs, and a tail. Now that I'm not fighting it any more I think I know how they need to be.

Jade Vase

There hasn't been any knitting for ages. I started to make this a year ago then got a bit discouraged, forgot about it, and finished it when I came back from Buenos Aires.

It continues my idea of objects from an imaginary archeological dig in an imaginary tomb. Pottery is both fragile and exceedingly long-lasting, but textiles hardly ever survive. The previous object so discovered in my brain was the Leaf Amphora, and before that there was the Aran Vase. Like the Aran vase, this one has little feet made with bobbles. Although they're not needed to make this shape stand - it has a flat base - I've used them to start the lines of rib and give it a little extra structure.

Inside the jade vase

 I considered putting some sort of reinforcement inside, but in the end I didn't. It stands up and maintains it squarish shape very well just from being blocked around a square plastic water bottle.

This light green cotton has a lovely glossy sheen, and it reminds me of the jade which is found in the ancient tombs of China. Nobody is quite sure what a jade bi was for, but they are often found.

Jade vase

To see all the knitting and crochet posts, click http://mshedgehog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/knitting%20and%20crochet.

The Caterpillar Club

My father was born in 1945. This tiny thing represents the lives of myself and my sister and all of my aunts, uncles and cousins on that side.

Silkworm brooch with ruby eyes

My grandfather was a professional airman before, during, and after the Second World War. These brooches were presented by parachute manufacturers. If your life was saved by a parachute, you could write to them and they would send you one of these, with a letter welcoming you to the "Caterpillar Club". It's a minuscule gold silkworm, the caterpillar of a silk moth, with ruby eyes.

The ones I can find online that look like this one were issued by Irving Air Chute of Great Britain, Ltd., but various designs seem to have been used. To my taste, this is the nicest. We no longer have my grandfather's membership certificate or the presentation box, but the brooch has stayed in my Dad's possession, in a little cellophane wrapper inside my grandfather's portable writing box, along with leftover invitations to my parents' wedding reception and other odds and ends that nobody knows what to do with. It's possible that this brooch is a replacement - family legend is that he bailed out more than once, and the first one was lost, but I have no evidence.

I knew him, briefly, the only one of my grandparents I ever met. 

It always seemed a little wrong to me that a thing with so much meaning should be totally hidden away. But no one can reasonably wear it, and such a tiny object is tricky to display.

So I got a box frame from Atlantis Art Supplies, a bit of mount board, a bit of velvety black wool cloth from my stash, and some soft glossy mercerised cotton, and I've crocheted it a little picture to be in. Parachutes at that time were dome-shaped rather than rectangular as they are these days.

Display picture for the Caterpillar Club brooch

It has a curious clasp, a sort of two-part spring thing I have never seen before. I had to borrow my mother's reading glasses to attach it to the picture.

Ready to hang

Can you see what it is yet?

Probably not - but it's representational rather than functional, in this case. And it will be on a black background, just not my knee. This is actually a soft but glossy mercerised cotton.

Work in progress

 

This was Saturday, and it's finished now ... I'll post that later, as it will take a while to write.

How to see all knitting posts

I'm getting knitting referrals - I haven't posted any knitting for a really long time, but in case you don't see the 'tags' thing, here is a link that should give you all the posts about knitting.

http://mshedgehog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/knitting%20and%20crochet

When you get down to the bottom, you can click "Older Posts" at the very bottom left and you will find two more pages of posts.

Leaf Amphora

Another experimental object. I have no animals to make at the moment, so this continues my idea of artefacts in an imaginary tomb. It has a good deal of internal capacity, well-padded: it's pleasing as an object, but it can also be used to contain smaller things.

It's an undyed organic Welsh wool, I think - certainly undyed - but I've mislaid the ball band and don't remember the brand or breed. It might be the Grey-Faced Dartmoor from Garthenor, and I probably bought it from iKnit, although it doesn't seem to be stocked in the online shop. I think the greyish oatmeal colour, with dark brown hairs, is very easy on the eye. It makes lovely housewares.

Aran Vase

Aran Vase

Here's the other object I started on the Eurostar.

I like pottery. I was thinking about the beautiful pots that archaeologists sometimes find in tombs, and how distinctive they often are to particular times and places, but also how regular; so that styles and shapes of pottery can date a site with surprising precision.

I was also thinking about the way textiles hardly ever survive. And the way that the women and men who knitted traditional seafarers' garments of the British Isles would start with a more or less fixed basic design and set of techniques that worked well with the materials, and then execute them with a range of motifs and variations that they personally favoured, or that they learned from family members or friends, or that their own invention suggested. Always bearing in mind that the result had to be a practical and beautiful garment, acceptable to the intended wearer. More or less the same conditions, then, that governed the production of pots.

Glasses

Anyway, this came to mind, more or less as it looks, although I work out a lot of the details as I go along. It has four little feet so that it stands up nicely, and the inside is the same shape as the outside.

Generally, it's designed to be looked at, but it's also an excellent place to put down a pair of glasses.

I'm going to be working on some more designs like this.

Mouth Mouse

I was so bored knitting the garment I was working on that I just had to make something else. So I knitted this on the Eurostar and the ICE high-speed to the festival and back.

Mouth Mouse.

I had no idea what it was, it just came out of my head. I showed it to Carole Edrich and she said "It's a Mouth Mouse".

This is the back.

Rear of the Mouth Mouse.

That's it really. Who needs a reason?

What are John Lewis thinking?

What, please, is wrong with the knitting department at John Lewis Oxford Street?

No Addi Turbos - no Addi of any kind. No Manos del Uruguay. No Malabrigo. No Shetland. No Artesano. No Habu. No Colinette. No Wensleydale. No organic Welsh natural colours. None of that beautiful Argentinian cotton I made the chemo hat out of. No mercerised cotton. Not even Opal or Cherry Tree Hill sock wool. They've stopped doing the Cygnet Superwash pure wool that I used to use to make my knitted animals, that came in all those good strong colours; there's absolutely no point in going there any more. What are they, a dozen years behind the times? I see young, starting-out knitters coming in and going away puzzled and disappointed, having had their time wasted with this stuff. (If that's you, try here instead).

All they've got is overpriced boring big brands, Rowan (with their boring boring coordinated-wallpaper colour schemes and they've never even managed a proper blue or a proper red), a few cheapo rubbish needles (like they've never heard of magic loop - you certainly couldn't do it with anything they have), Debbie Bliss, a wierdly enormous pile of not-very-useful Noro, a small batch of very scratchy Fair Trade product in muddy colours and some ghastly soapy acrylic.

I entirely agree that it's essential to provide some low-budget yarns - but they don't even do that well. And is it really the low-budget knitters who fight their way through the Oxford Street crowd to go there? If you're that low-budget you'd be better off at that department store in Ealing, or down Walthamstow Market.

I can only conclude I'm not their target market. But I'm not sure who is. Clueless knitters only, who don't expect any better? That doesn't seem like a sound long-term strategy.

Do they sell ball winders? How about the rug-hook for attaching zips? No.

And the haberdashery is just as bad. I want to make myself a carefully-fitted wool skirt in a specific design. I just want some good quality wool cloth in a choice of colours. Can they help me? Nope.

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Update, promoted from Comments:

Sharon Neale said...

Hi, my colleagues at John Lewis came across this post and shared it with me. Thought it would be worthwhile responding.

John Lewis always welcomes customer feedback and we are currently looking to strengthen the range of brands and accessories across our entire haberdashery range, especially knitting - so please watch this space!

Our existing assortment is generally proving popular with our customers but we constantly look at ways of improving our offering so thank you very much for your feedback.

Sharon Neale, Buyer for Haberdashery at John Lewis

Hedgehog here: I'd be a lot happier if the Cygnet Superwash, or any other superwash pure wool at the same price point in a range of strong colours, in a DK and an Aran weight, and maybe a sock weight, came back. That's something a department store can really deliver. Together with maybe some quality needles. The rest of it, to be fair, is relatively low-quantity stuff that I can get elsewhere.

Hat-Shelled Crab

Here is the thing I've been knitting. I got to deliver it down on the coast last weekend.

Hat-shelled crab with eyes on and ready to go

It took two balls of yellow and one ball of red, 100% wool superwash. The stuffing, as usual, is the polyester washable stuff they sell in John Lewis.

The two little legs at the back are red because I made eight legs before half-remembering that crabs have ten, and looking it up to check - and I didn't have enough yellow left. But I like them like that, the effect is crab-like. The pincers lock together quite nicely too.

And here he is in action:

Hat-Shelled Crab guarding 2-week old owner from evil spirits

Twin Baby hats with swapped stripes

These are for two little girls, younger sisters of the Moominbaby, Little Pearl. They are very stretchy so should (I hope) fit for a while.

They were born earlier this year so they'll be still babies now, but quite big babies. These are roll-upable and might last till toddlerdom - they are more or less the same as the smooth striped beanie, just smaller and made of a very soft wool mix.

Sock Dragon

Here is the Sock Dragon. La Tanguerita and Pip both guessed right in the previous post.
You instantiate a Sock Dragon by knitting out of sock wool. It doesn't eat any extra socks for being instantiated.

The wings are slightly stiffened with a nylon-coated steel twist - it's soft, you can sew with it, but it gives them just a little bit of shape. The eyes - last, as always - are made with small red beads and gold sequins.

It has two rear feet like this with four front toes and a backward-pointing toe. They are made as bobbles. The leg is knitted like a toe-up sock with bobbles.

I considered knitting the spines along his back but I haven't done that kind of edging before, and it also seems a bit floppier and more difficult than the crochet alternative.

I have no memory right now of how I did these, it seemed obvious at the time, but essentially there's a row of dc along his back in the purl gully between two mirrored 6x6 cables.

That's followed by two layers. I've done a few ch and some stitches of progressive height, then covered them over with long-legged dc, but I've completely forgotten what the logic was. Not at my most stellar today.

Another animal but I'm not saying what it is yet.

A creature is in progress.

And:

Nearly done. The last bit is quite fiddly, though.

Joy and the shoemaker

A friend sent me this, which is about someone she knows - he makes shoes, and dances tango. (From what we can see, he dances very nicely. We can't hear the music because the sound is doing something else then, and the video is not about tango, but it looks good.)


Leather and Wood from Francis Reynolds on Vimeo.

I like to work with my hands from time to time, and I like to seek relative perfection in what I produce. The process of paying attention to the quality of my dance, and gradually improving it, is quite similar in some of the satisfactions it brings. The process of learning and problem solving that he describes is even quite familiar from my various efforts at computer programming, so I suppose it's universal.

It's not about perfectionism, or trying to get to any particular point, or surpassing anyone else*. It's just that the progress from any degree of lesser to greater perfection in something you wish to do, is one of the simplest and most universally accessible joys there is; a process so joyous that to hurry would be ridiculous.

That's how I see it; and that means that I like to improve one small thing at a time, one after another, without quarelling with whatever I have now. As someone-or-other said in a tennis manual (I think), you don't criticise the seed for not having leaves or the sapling for being slim or the bud for not being a flower.

Of course, pursuing this joy requires that the thing being done should be interesting, and open-ended; that the possibilities for improvement should not have too-close or obvious limits.

And I feel it's also a requirement that there should be some product along the way - that the subject matter should have a point and a value of its own, independent of the learning process.

When I was at school, I was very good at passing exams. But it was a rather trivial game - a game I played conscientiously, since that was the only thing anyone desired of me. There's no room for direct participation in the subject matter in the way that there's room to just dance, or just knit something. And I never had any perception of making progress in anything; indeed I did four A-Levels, 10 GCSE's and a university degree without ever having any real sense that progress, in the sense of getting better at something than I was last week, was even possible. To me, they were all just one literacy test after another, with minor variations in the contents of the text, and reading was what I did anyway to escape from boredom and bullies.

Things that don't have enough to be learned about them are boring, but learning things without room to just do them is something I've done more than enough of.

I think this might be the first post with both labels.

*Although that can be fun too, of course, under certain circumstances - mutual competition between overtly or covertly consenting individuals. Humans like a little sport when the opportunity arises, and it can keep our motivation going through hard times.

1x1 tubular castoff (for cie, jo and maya)

Hello busybees - this is my version of techknitter's beautiful tubular castoff. Obviously it has been done many times before (you will see related videos on YouTube). This comes after the two complete rounds of double knitting, which requires going round four times, working and slipping knits and purls alternately.



It's so much easier to keep track of where you are than it is on two needles, and it's so much easier to keep the gauge consistent, that if I had two pieces to be grafted together I would consider transferring them to a single needle in order to do it this way. But maybe that would crowd the stitches too much and make it too slow and awkward.

But mainly I took the video because I keep forgetting exactly what the path is - which leg of each stitch should be worked in which direction - if I don't do it for a while. Having watched my own hands do it on video several times over, I can now play back in my head what it looks like, and for some reason the memory problem is solved. I'm not sure that watching someone else's hands, or watching in lower quality, would have worked.

The Object being finished is another hottie woollie.

Heart Hottie Woollie

No, not an ill-considered Valentine's day gift*, although it sounds like it, but a little garment for a hot-water bottle. As I have said before, both the beauty and the utility of this mundane object are very much improved by knitting it a little woolly sweater in whatever style appeals to you. When newly filled it feels warm instead of hot, and it releases its heat slowly and is still warm in the morning.

A superwash wool or wool mix is excellent, but if for one reason or another you don't use wool, the main thing is to choose a fibre with good insulating properties. The point is to slow the release of heat; a lot of commercial hottie covers are made of fibres or weaves that don't deliver.

The photo is a bit rubbish because I took it in a hurry with my phone, sorry. This one was a present for my sister so I can't take another photo unless I visit her. It's made in Rowan RY Cashsoft Aran. It took quite a bit more than one ball. The dye lots vary markedly, but it feels great and not at all tickly, which is a bonus.

You make it as follows:

• Cast on as though for a giant's toe-up sock, 30 stitches across (for a fairly tight fit at my gauge), using Judy's magic cast on for toe-up socks, which you should learn if you haven't yet.
• Knit in the round (60 stitches to a round) without increasing until it is long enough to reach the shoulder of the bottle, introducing a moss-stitch heart or any other decorative element that pleases you and doesn't distort the shape. Mine has a heart on each side.
  
• Change to 1x1 ribbing and continue till it is long enough to conceal the top without covering it (I don't see any reason to cover the top - it doesn't lose any heat through there, and there's no need to take the cover off just to fill or empty the bottle).
• Cast off. To make the collar stand up straight as shown, use Techknitter's beautiful tubular cast-off for 1x1 ribbing. This will make the opening a lot less stretchy, but that's fine because an empty hot water bottle is flexible and can be partly folded along its long axis for insertion.

There's no real need for shaping and there's no need for any elaborate fastenings. With this design they're just not necessary. If your fibre is a bit floppy, you can introduce a row of (*yo, k2tog, repeat from *) just before the ribbing, and thread a ribbon through as a drawstring. The collar won't stand up so well, though, if the yarn is floppy.

*For non-knitters: it is widely regarded as unlucky to knit any sort of sweater for any man-in-your-life to whom you are not closely related, or legally (or at least customarily) married. It is tempting fate, specificially tempting it to bring the relationship to a quick end.

Very Girly Baby Hat

My colleague has a little son already, and is delighted to be expecting a girl.

This hat is Very Girly. The basic shape is just an octagonal hat worked from the top down, but I made it Girly with a pink wool/cotton mix sock wool, a picot cast off, and some crocheted motifs.

(It looks a strange shape because it's being modelled by a little Chinese porcelain vase from the V&A shop which just happens to be nearly the right size and shape if I stand it upside-down - when worn by a baby the ribbing would fold upwards. This is an improvised pattern, it's stretchy, I'm hoping it'll fit).

Work circularly, with dpns or magic loop.

Cast on 4 and do a little i-cord for the stalk. I like stalks on baby hats. If you don't like stalks then just use any centre-out cast-on you like.

round 1: k1, m1, 4 times.
round 2 and all even rounds: k.
round 3 and all odd rounds: m1 at 8 points around, evenly distributed, until the circumference is large enough for the intended Baby. Use a baby head size chart.

That's the end of the shaping.

Motif band: Purl 2 rows. Knit 2 rows. Purl 2 rows. Knit another 15 rows. * Purl 2 rows. Knit 2 rows. Repeat from * once more. I got a noticeable jog with this pattern - it would have been much better if I'd thought to cover it with some jogless-stripe method or other, so try it.

Switch to 1x1 rib and continue till the hat is long enough for intended Baby. Use a chart again.

Cast off with a picot cast off.

Make crochet motifs and sew them on. The flower is a completely standard Irish crochet rose - all books on crochet motifs or Irish crochet have them. Any sort of flower, knitted or crocheted, would have done. But be aware if you are in the US, or you learned to crochet from a book written in the US, facsimile books of Irish crochet lace motifs may be using the British/Irish stitch names, which are all off-by-one if you're American. I use that notation too.

The leaves I improvised as follows:

Ch of 20 for the full length of leaf plus stalk, make a picot by slip-stitching into 4th ch from hook, then work back along the chain:
1 dc, 1htr, 1tr, 4dtr, 1dtr into same ch as previous dtr, 1tr, 1htr, 1dc
3 chain - turn so that the remaining chain, which forms the stalk, passes under the 3 chain - and work back along the other side of the leaf towards the picot, exactly as above.
Sl st into the picot and fasten off leaving a long tail for sewing it on.

Striped Gecko with Bobble Toes

This is another baby present. The body starts at the nose with Judy's magic cast-on for toe-up socks. The nose increases just like a toe-up sock but with increases every third row instead of every other row. At the end of the increases, I made Aran bobbles for eyes. The body is a tube, using Techknitter's jogless stripes (I allow them to travel). For the tail I decreased at the same rate as the nose, but offset by 45°, so at the centre front and back instead of at the sides.

The fun part is the feet. The toes are aran bobbles, and on the underside is a moss-stitch triangle to represent the velcro feet that geckos have. You could literally sew velcro on, and have a handy toy that sticks to bedcovers, toddlers' clothes, and whatnot.

I started the feet at the toes, as follows.

Cast on 25 using Judy's magic cast-on for toe-up socks (i.e. 25 on each needle). Knit 2 rounds.
Round 3: On the top, k2, make bobble, *k4, make bobble, repeat from * 3 more times (5 toes), k2. On the bottom, k2, *p1, k1, repeat from * till 2 st from end, k2.
Round 4 and even rounds: k on top. On bottom, keep seed/moss stitch pattern correct, reserving 2k at each end.
Round 5 and odd rounds: 2 decreases on top and 2 on bottom for each of next 2 odd rounds. Then 4 decreases on each side in following odd rounds till you're down to 9 stitches top and 9 bottom. On the moss stitch side you keep the decreases at the edges, on the top I put them between the toes to make a nice anatomical shape.

When you're down to 9 just knit straight till it is long enough, stuff the foot, and do a 3-needle bind off, leaving a tail the length of your arm for sewing it on.

The way I know of making an Aran bobble is like this, but you could use whatever kind of bobble you please:

Into next stitch, k1, yo, k1, yo, k1 (5 sts on needle).
Turn. P5.
Turn. K5.
Turn. Slip 1, p1, pass slipped st over. P1. P2tog. (3 sts on needle).
Turn. Slip 1, k2tog, pass slipped st over. (Back to 1 st on neede).
Continue from there, as though nothing had happened.

The last step is to embroider the eyes. This has to be done last (same principle as when they paint a religious image in India).

I learned quite a few things making this, some of them the kind of things I ought to have known but that only really come with specific experience. It's not perfect, or even close, and if I was making it again I'd make it a bit differently. I'd make the tail bigger, and the body smaller, I'd add some shaping behind the head, and I might use just two colours and perhaps add a cable down the spine. The moss stitch, to my shame, is messed up on one of the back feet by a misconcieved pattern of decreases. But it was a work of discovery and will be loved by a fellow knitter and her baby, who might be moving to a tropical climate soon.

I really like the bobble toes.