YeeHaw

I made the YeeHaw hat from the Stitch 'n Bitch happy hookers book. Well I attempted to make it following the pattern from the book.

I don't usually follow a pattern as I just like to do my own thing, but this pattern in my opinion was very bad. Mistakes a plenty. It was a real shame, as its one of the main patterns used to advertise the book.

From this experience, I don't think I would bother with any Stitch n Bitch patterns in the future, as this one was clearly not test made to trial the pattern.

The pattern really goes wrong in the first few rows, so I tried and tried to work it out, but I couldn't. I ripped it back to the beginning and made my interpretation of the pattern.

• I made the initial chain longer so the body of the hat would be longer.
• I changed the increases.
• I worked most of the hat in the round rather than joining at the end of the rows.
• I added extra rows for depth and width.
• I changed the increases for the brim as the increases indicated made the brim go hyperbolic!
  

I think it turned out well in the end, but I had to make up the pattern for myself. Luckily, I'm getting quite good at that now :p

The Pacer - Beanie, Ear Flap & Visor

The Pacer Beanie (optional Ear Flaps & Visor)

available from www.SnowHats.co.uk

UPDATE: Pattern is now available from http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-pacer-beanie---ear-flap--visor

This is a brand new design i created. This hat is available for custom hat design from http://www.snowhats.co.uk/ where you are able to choose your own colours and add extras, like ear flaps and a visor.

Made for winter sports (snowboard, ski) or just for fasion.

New Knitting Bin

I am so pleased with my most recent purchase, that i really had to tell you all about it.

I have been needing a bigger recepticle for my yarn of late, as i mostly knit or crochet in double which means i need 2 balls of wool at a time. And especially doing colour work, i then need even more at a time. My knitting bagasket that my sister made me is great but i need to hold more volume when sitting in front of the TV crocheting :)

So i wanted a basket or a box to put beside my chair.

I found this online - good old ikea. The Viren Waste Bin from Ikea - Advertised as a bathroom bin, it has a hole in the lid ? why -

Well for me this means i dont have to cut a hole in it.

It can happily hold 6 x 100g of wool and allow me to poke the working yarn through the hole, and work with the lid on :)

Now my living room is a little tidyer and it cost me less than £3!!

On to recent creations.... Some hats for the winter sports mentalists - Snowboard or Ski

I am such a busy bee at the moment, i have so many ideas and things i want to do that i really cant fit them all in, but i want to complete them all now!!!!

I am busy trying to sort out a custom ordering section for my site www.SnowHats.co.uk while trying to make some stock hats to demonstrate all the custom possibilities.

3 New Hats Complete

I have Knitted 2 more Chunky Cabled Ear Flap Hats, one of which has sold already (actually, it had sold before I had even knitted it). The other is now in stock on the site.

The other hat i made over the weekend is the Snowboard Mohawk Beanie Ear Flap Hat. This was to replace the stock on the site, as I have sold 2 of these so far.

As for what else im doing, I have a list of things to do really. I have some ear flaps to add to my other half's beanie, as he found that he really wanted when we were on hols last. Also, I did start out trying to pattern up my Aran weight Cabled Ear Flap Hat, but i realised 30 rows in, that I really dont have the correct weight yarn to do this right now. So until I do, i think i might start on a DK weight version.

Back from Andorra

Well Im back in one peice - Just about. Only had 2 misshaps. One involving a big bruise on my hip - that is to be expected, and the other inolving me using my face as a break :)

Other than that, I am in good condition now, and I had a great time.

I returned home to find that SnowHats.co.uk had made 2 sales whilst I was gone. The the New Cream Chunky Cabled Ear Flapper and the Snowboarder Mohawk Ear Flapper Hat.

Also, I have had a lovely lady from Ravelry test knitting my Chunky Cabled Ear Flapper Pattern.

She has almoast finished the test knit which uncovered a few minor typos in the pattern.

So just to leave you with a few pics of Andorra.

How Deep is this snow!!!

The view from the chair lift

Me In my Chunky Cabled Ear Flapper

Another Day another Hat

Update

Hi
I meant to update the blog with photos of my trip to Tignes. But the day i arrived back in work, i found out i had been made redundant. Bummer. So was a bit down in the dumps, and i havent really looked at the holiday pics or vids.

But I finally picked myself out of my :( feeling, and I have managed to land my self 2 job offers. I have the weekend to decide now :Z

But over this time, i have been busy, so here are a few shots of what I have done.

Yellow and Green Ladies Beanie

White Blue and Orange Earflapper (Unisex)

Mauve and Teal Mens (Large) Beanie

My Little Inga

Baby Heart Hat

Tri Coloured Crochet Hat

Purple Slouch

And my personal favourite

Green and Teal Earflapper

More photos of all in my flicker account.

BubbleGum Visor - Ski or Snowboarding Visor Headwarmer

Bubble Gum Visor - Available On Etsy

To use up the remaining Bubble Gum Yarn, I knocked up a Headwarmer Visor.

I have been wanting one of these personally since the last snowboarding trip.

I tend to over heat when boarding in good weather, so a visor is ideal to keep the body temprature down, keep your eyes sheilded and keep your hair off your face.

I was thinking of writing this pattern up - Post a comment if you would be interested in having it.

Pineapple Cuff - Size M - Orange and Blue

Looking through the collection of random colours that were sent to me from my ebay freebie, I saw that this orange colour matched some beads I had previously purchased. So wanting to try out the new crochet cotton, i thought i would re make the pineapple cuff in a smaller size.

The colours are a bit vivid, and to be honest, I hadnt imagined that it would look like it does. But the more i look at it, the more i think its pretty funky.

As for the crochet cotton, i do love it, It is much more delicate than the thicker stuff that i have been using previously, but not too thin that it is hard to work.

You may have noticed my etsy link on my blog now. I didnt intend to do this, but was bored this morning and thought i would talk a look around etsy. I listed 2 items, this one included. My thought was, that as it cost so little to list and the listings stay in place for 4 months, i might as well give it a try.

We will see what happens with it.

Janome 8077 - Making room on my desk!!

Thanks to my lovely sister Carol aka Taylor's Textile Trials, I am now the proud owner of a new Janome 8077!! My sister is a fab textile fiber artist and knows a thing or 2 about sewing machines, and she took me to her lockal sewing machine shop in swansea (Cliffords Sewing Machines Ltd). I have to say thank you to Mike who gave me a great demo and also a discount!! :)

My mother gave me an old sewing machine some years ago, but over time, and much struggle with it, i gave up trying to do projects on it as it always messed up the work. My knitting and crochet rolls are good examples of the machines bad work. I gave up sewing on it at that point as it was just so hard do use.

I am now really excited about finishing off my other rolls I need to make - one for my straight needles and one for my DPN's. After that, I will have to see what else i come up with, as i better use it now i spent all this money!!

Also, another present (to myself) that came in the post today :) my bead organisers. Since i needed to make room on my desk for my new machine, I needed a secure location for my beads. I found these on ebay, and they came all the way from america. Mini tic tac boxes in a storage box. I have filled 2 boxes alread!! only another 3 more to go.

Lastly, a quick update on the garden. I have loads of tomatoes now, they just need to ripen up. Im so impatient though, just cant help checking everyday to see if they are ready!! Also, my first courgette and cucumber have doubled in size over the last few days. I have 2 peppers also getting quite big, maybe 1/4 size right now. What can i say about my sole runner bean plant!! It HAD black fly. I say had as they had a fight with a water pistol and soapy water, and now they have gone!! But i cant stop itching, so maybe they have jumped on me!! lol

Carols Beaded Crochet Cuff

I started this on Friday night, I was itching to finish it off, so on Saturday so when i woke up, I started straight away. I got to about a motif and a half before where I wanted to stop, and I ran out of my contrasting colour. Since i couldn't be bothered to go shopping again, I thought I would rip it back and just take out some of the stitches in the to make the yarn go further.

Having spent until lunch time re doing the night before's progress, I took a break for lunch. This is when i realised that it was a glorious day and was far too nice to be sat indoors.

Tony had got the new pool out, and we filled it up. It is huge - I even managed to fit my lilo in it.
Consequently, I spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday messing around in it.

Sunday was a really nice day, I spent the moring finishing off the cuff, then I prepared the food in the garden, and had a barbeque. :)

So to the cuff, here you are then. Like the previous one i made, I used the Queen Anne motif. I added beads to the st loops and went over with st highlight at the end. I managed to make the contrasting colour last for 11 motifs :) but not enought to finish the clasp I made, so as you can see, that is edged in the sliver colour.

I thought for a while about how to make a clasp for this. I didnt want to make one that you tie as I know how hard that is when you are trying to put it on by yourself. Also, I wanted to make it adjustable.

I found a clear button and attached it to one end. I thought of threading a length of cotton from the button end, through the first motif and then back to the button. I put a circular motif on the end of the thread, so that it didnt pull out when you put your hand through. My idea was, that when you put it on, you pull the thread and then wind it around the button. This worked ok, but having worn it for a couple of minutes, the thread started to unwind. Then I realised, that if I had made my circular motif a bit bigger in the middle, it would have fitted over the button. So i cut it off and re made it.

So now, the cuff is ajustable. You put it on, pull the cord, wind it to fit, and put the clasp over the button.

I was so pleased with my peice, I didnt really want to send it off to my sister!! I thought I would package it put right away otherwise I might conveniently forget. Tony posted it right away for me, on his way to the shops.

Finally, I have to say thank you again to Leslie for giving me the idea in the first place.

Crochet Cuff

When i made my last crochet cuffs, my sister asked me to make her one.

Well I didnt think that much of the ones I had made, I was more messing around than making something nice. Practicing stitches etc. The yarn i used was acrylic and not so great either.

Now summer is hear and weather is warmer, I dont think you would want the ones I have made on your wrist.

But, I havent given up..... I have been looking around the net and I manage to bump in to this lovely lady.... WoolMountain - I had saw her free form cuffs on Etsy previously. Leslie has given me loads of advice and i have been trying to take it all in. I thought i would start with what i liked in the first place - Queen Anne Lace design.


Here is what I did.















The actual peice is too big for my wrist. I miss judged it - and now cant be bothered to take one of the motifs out.

One of the reasons for me not bothering to do this was because I only had this yarn here and I knew it wasnt going to be suitable, but I was itching to give it a go.

I feel like a bit of a copy cat, trying to copy what Leslie has been doing, but I just love what she has done so much, I couldnt help wanting to give it a go myself.

I went shopping yesterday to try and find some nice crochet cotton, but there is a distinct lack of it around here. So I held off and am trying to find something online that might go better.

When i was shopping I did manage to pick up a bargain for my stash -

.99p each.





I can see something good coming from this later!





I also picked up some DMC thread - like you would use for cross stitch. I thought, with the lack of crochet cotton, i would just try with this for now. That way, i could try different thicknesses to see what i liked. Looking online I have been quite confused with the crochet cotton weights and just didnt know what they would be like to work with. Working with these DMC threads, Im starting to get an idea of the weight I want for my projects.


So back to what I was saying in the beginning - My sister wanted something - Well here is a sneek peak of what i picked up. Im half way through and Im not going to show you until I have finished. So when you read this carol, you will just have to wait and see!

Crochet Hook Roll

Finally got round to making the matching crochet hook roll that i have been meaning to make for ages.

Found a lovely tutorial ... http://www.joleo.co.uk/todayweare/?p=176 to give me guidance.

I had enough material left to make this one so now i have a matching crochet hook roll and circular kneedle roll.

This time, i added bondaweb between the interlining - and also added vilene interfacing between the pocket material to give this more substance.

What a difference it makes, this one is so much stiffer.

Here are the pics....