Wendy Knits

If you are in Northern Virginia and happen to see a strange woman in the grocery store measuring the circumference of all large cylindrical objects with a tape measure, please stop and say hello to me.

What am I up to? Why, I am in search of the perfect blocking aid for bucket hats, of course.

The Skye Bucket was blocked on a china cachepot I have, but was just a tad too big. So I rewashed it and felted it over a bowl that was a tad too small with a towel taped around it to make it big enough.

So on Saturday I brought my tape measure to the grocery store and measured everything in the store that looked like it might work.

I quickly came to the conclusion that Bonne Marie has a dainty little head if she can use a 2-lb coffee can to block her hats.

Did you know that people look at you funny when you measure stuff in the grocery store?

I ended up buying a tin of Danish Butter Cookies (you know — the small blue tin) in the Rite-Aid (on sale for $1.99) because I thought it was perfection. But guess what? It’s just an ootch too big.

After watching all this, Ian thoughtfully did an online search for hat forms for me, but I didn’t see anything that was exactly right.

So I was back at the grocery store with my tape measure last night. Nothing new since Saturday, but hope springs eternal.

New Scarf

Oooooh! Yummy, yummy!

This is handpainted cashmere knitted in a simple feather and fan stitch. Cashmere purchased from an ebay seller — link to her store in the sidebar.

I’m just winging the pattern. Want it? You know you do.

Simple Feather and Fan Lace Scarf

Cast on 58 stitches.

Rows 1, 2, & 4: Knit.
Row 3: Knit 2, (knit 2 tog) 3 times, *(yo, k1) 6 times, (knit 2 tog) 6 times — repeat from * to last 8 stitchs, (knit 2 tog) 3 times, knit 2.

Repeat these four rows until the scarf is as long as you want, or until you run outta yarn.

Couldn’t be simpler, right?

Confession is Good for the Soul

This came in the mail yesterday:

As did this:

The first pile o’ yarn is to make another kitty bed for Miss Lucy. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill-Potluck Bulky-blues greens and Trendsetter Shadow in shade 1003. And I started the bed, on size 15 needles with the yarn held double:

The second pile of yarn is “Forest Handpainted Cloud 9 Wool Yarn” purchased on eBay from Over the Rainbow Yarns and all I can say is Wow! Wowie wow wow wow! No concrete plans for this wool . . . yet.

Alrighty kids . . .

This is probably my last post for the week. Happy Holidays to all!

Oh, what will it be?

I dunno.

I’ve not started a sweater after finishing Fern because I wanted to wait until after Christmas. That is because I wanna see what I get for Christmas. I flat out asked for yarn for one sweater, and did some blatant hinting for another, so if either of those materialize, I’ll start one of them. Probably on December 25.

No, I’m not gonna tell you what they are. Telling would jinx it!

Bucket Chat

Last Friday the lovely and talented Bonne Marie, creator of the Bucket-o-Chic pattern emailed me and we chatted about the wavy-ness of the brim of my Skye Bucket.

Note to myself — if I ever see a yarn called “Scum,” buy it and knit a bucket hat so I can call it my Scum Bucket.

Bonne Marie offered the possibility of holding the yarn doubled but picking up stitches at the ratio of 3:4 instead of 5:6. She was concerned that if I knit the brim with a single thickness it would roll. I countered with the suggestion of a single thickness garter stitch or seed stitch brim.

If you head on over to Chicknits, you’ll see she knitted a hat incorporating her suggestion, and it came out beautifully.

By the way Silvia had an intriguing idea about how to salvage my wavy hat . . .

Since it’s felted, why don’t you cut the brim and make it shorter then overcast the cut edge by hand then steam/wash and see what it looks like?

Isn’t that clever? Maybe I’ll try that!

And of course, I had to knit another hat incorporating my idea. I knitted my hat out of Lopi Light and picked up stitches for the brim according to the original pattern. But I did not knit the brim double thickness. I used one strand of yarn and knit the brim garter stitch.

Here’s the hat pre-felting:

Tossed it in the washer and sent it through twice. And here it is, in all its felted glory:

I did very minimal post-felting manipulation — just popped it over a tin to dry and smoothed it down a bit. Not a wave in sight!

Mobius

It’s coming along.

I think Lucy is practicing for her career as a spokesmodel.

Close-up:

Happy Monday!

Remember the old cartoon “Fat Albert?” There was a character who wore a hat that covered his whole face, with holes cut out for his eyes.

All I need are the holes!

As you’ve probably guessed, that’s my bucket hat in its pre-felted state. Huge, no?

But lookie here! After only one trip through the washing machine, it was magically transformed into this:

I thought it would take three washes to do it, but it took just one.

I’m here to tell you that Colinette Skye yarn felts beautifully.

I made a large hat, partly because I have a big head (that’s big head, not swelled head) and partly because I wanted a hat that would fit loosely and not smoosh down my curls too much. This one does the trick. The only thing I’d do differently is to not make it as tall from top to bottom. So now I know for the next one.

Thank you

For all your nice comments yesterday. Lucy does indeed love her kitty bed and I am going to have to make her another one, for the bedroom. She usually sleeps on my bed, but sometimes she drapes herself on top of a dresser, and it would be nice if she had a cosy comfy bed there.

She’s not . . . spoiled . . . do you think?

Anyhow, I encourage all of you who have small fuzzy critters who might like a bed to make one. It’s really really easy, and it can be knitted from any feltable bulky wool, with or without the fur edging. As I mentioned before, I’ve posted the free pattern on my website. It’s available as a link from my knitting page (look under “Knitting Gallery in my sidebar).

At least two of you who have blogs I’ve read have adorable toy/teacup poodles. Those tiny tots deserve felted beds!

Fern

I’ve made a Fern page, also linked to from the main knitting page. Don’t bother to go there, because the only photo there is the one I posted yesterday. But if I have time and the weather cooperates, we’ll take some outside photos over the weekend. I’ll let you know.

Yup, I knitted it in 20 days. See? I told you it was entertaining.

And Lolly, if you’re reading this, I’d love to follow Vanessa’s suggestion and have a Fern Day Out at MDS&W sometime. We could be the Bad-Ass Fern Girls!

Mobius Cowl

I started knitting the HeartStrings Soft Cables Mobius Scarf in Peruvian Collection Baby Silk (80% baby alpaca 20% silk) in color “peridot,” held doubled, on size 5 US needles — pattern and yarn bought from Elann. I think calling it a cowl is more accurate.

I started this at 2:00am yesterday morning — I’m an insomniac. This is the first time in years, though, that when I can’t sleep I’ve turned on the light and started knitting. I figured — who am I kidding? I’m not going to sleep again before my alarm goes off at . . . ahem . . . 4:25am, so I might as well do something constructive.

I left it on the couch last night and got up for a minute. Then the phone rang. When I returned to the couch, I saw this:

And I saw this:

She looks just a little too innocent, doesn’t she? I couldn’t get angry with her because it was my own fault for leaving it unattended. And the yarn is quite alluring.

Well, I decided she did me a favor, because I thought I’d like the pattern better knitted in something with a little more body. So I started it again with some Noro Cash Iroha (40% silk, 30% lambswool, 20% cashmere, 10% nylon) on a US 7 needle. And I like the results much better.

And I love my macro lens!