Ups and Downs Slouchy Beanie

I made this hat for a friend of mine (we are also coworkers) who is about to start chemo. The yarn is lovely and soft and made with colors she likes. I hope it's a comfort to her on her chemo journey. Hang in there, J!!! We're rooting for you!!!

The free pattern is the Ups and Downs Slouchy Beanie by Moogly, aka Tamara Kelly.

A vest pour moi

I crocheted a warm vest for myself, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. It only took me about five years to settle down and get it done. I've started then ripped out this same yarn over and over again, trying to get it right and/or achieve a style that I was happy with. But finally it all came together, although there are still a few places where the design can be improved.

The Kittehz Commission

Sabrina saw some of my projects I had posted on Facebook and messaged me to ask if I could make six cat scarves in some soft yarn for her to give to her daughters and friends at Christmas, sending me this photo as an example of what she was looking for:

I said absolutely and got to work on a prototype using Red Heart With Love. I asked Sabrina which colors she would like the scarves to be, but she said any colors would be fine. So I made the first one in the Holly Berry red colorway.

Sabrina liked the way the red scarf turned out. The only detail she wanted to change was the black outline around the eyes, which was no problem for me to fix.

I neglected to get a photo of all six finished scarves before delivering them to Sabrina (and after fixing the red cat's eyes), but here's a photo of four of them:

The other two scarves were a black one and a brown one. Sabrina was thrilled with how they turned out and said it meant a lot to her to have these gifts be made by someone who would enjoy doing them, so that they were made with love.

I also made a tiger scarf in the school colors of Sabrina's grandson Kaden, so he wouldn't feel left out of the fun. I think this one turned out looking kind of like a yellow-and-blue Hobbes. 😊

My blankie

♫ It's my blankie so I'll lounge if I want to, lounge if I want to ... ♫ You would lounge, too, if you had a blankie, too! 😁

This shot captures ALL the colors corner to corner.

Famous friend

My friend April's photo was featured by Moogly in her blog post about the many different ways crocheters hold their yarn and hook! So April is now officially famous in my book. 🙂😍 April's photo is included in the second group demonstrating the knife grip. Woo-hoo!

Kittehz commission prototype

Finished my prototype scarf (red one) based on the photo of the gray one on the right. Turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. 🙂

Auspicious beginning

This is the beginning of the Eva Hat knitting pattern by Yelena Chen.

This is going to be a chemo cap for my mother-in-law, who is battling cancer. The ribbing portion is shaped like the symbolic ribbons used to draw attention to various causes, and the teal color represents her particular cancer.

If you're knitting one of these for a cancer patient who is near and dear to your heart, you can use yarn in whichever color best symbolizes their particular cancer. The symbolism is subtle, and the hat can work for males or females.

Chocolate Syrup Poncho

I liked the way Rose's Slytherin-By-the-Sea poncho turned out, so I decided to make another one for myself. I know the yarn says it's named "Coffee," but the dark brown color reminds me more of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup.

Here I used an i-cord tab cast on of 4 rows, then picked up 3 stitches in the center for a total of 9 stitches on the needle. Worked following the Sheep Wagon Shawl pattern instructions on the 3 center stitches with the addition of the 3 i-cord stitches on each side. (I-cord: Knit 3 at beginning of row; sl3wyif at the end of each row.)

Joined to work in the round after row 57. Yes, this pattern requires a lot of purling while working flat (have to purl every return row), but that's the price you pay for wanting a design in classic, classy stockinette. Once you join to work in the round, however, you're on all-knitting easy street.

Update 5/14/15: I started out knitting this poncho with size 9 needles (5.5 mm), but the fabric was just turning out to be way too dense. So somewhere around row 70, I ripped the whole thing back and started over with size 10 needles. Painful to lose that much work, but I'm much happier with the fabric the second time around.

The Stegatortoise

This fun crochet project idea was shared by my friend Joann. The "Stegatortoise" is well protected against potential predators! 😂

Slytherin-By-the-Sea poncho for Rose

Here's a cozy garment stylish enough that even Bellatrix Lestrange herself might wear it! Our friend Rose was sorted into Slytherin House, but when she isn't away studying at Hogwarts, she lives in the chilly, foggy Bay Area ... hence she needed a Slytherin-By-the-Sea poncho to keep her cozy.

I started this project working the same as the Sheep Wagon Shawl but joined to work in the round after row 46 to produce a poncho instead of a wrap.

At the join, I worked another "spine" in the same manner as established between the other stockinette sections to make the join basically invisible and to provide another place for increasing the stitch count.

Since you don't turn your work anymore after joining to work in the round, I continued to emulate the Sheep Wagon Shawl stitch pattern by knitting all rounds and increasing on every-other round. Stockinette without the purling! W'hoo!!

After knitting about 94 total rows/rounds, I used a stretchy knitted cast-off but didn’t break the working yarn. I then continued working with a 5.5 mm crochet hook in the bottom loops of the knitted cast-off edge to crochet the lace edging from Kim Guzman's Cinnamon Fling to give the poncho a lovely finish. To work the lace edging in the round requires a stitch count in a multiple of 15; this poncho has 390 stitches around the hem.

Sheep Wagon Shawl

I was lucky enough to grab the Sheep Wagon Shawl pattern by Joanna Johnson while it was free during its first days on Ravelry. Now the pattern costs $4, but that's still a small price to pay because it's a lovely, well-executed design.

This is the shawl I referred to in my previous post that I worked using Lion Brand Cotton-Ease yarn.

I varied from the original pattern by incorporating some gradient striping based on the chart in the Gradient Mitts (free pattern) to transition from top color (Taupe) to bottom color (Charcoal), making this a simple, two-color striped shawl. I doubled the number of rows in the gradient stripes, so instead of being worked across 30 rows, I worked them across 60 rows, starting after row 62 of the shawl pattern.

Bottom edge stitch count: 535.

Update 4/10/15: I added a crocheted lace border adapted from Kim Guzman’s Cinnamon Fling wrap (free pattern) to accomplish two things. One, to alleviate the inevitable hem curl with stockinette fabric. And two, to add a few more inches in length.

The funny story here is that I ran short of the Charcoal Cotton-Ease yarn. This is visible in the above photo, where you can see a color variation in the bottom knitted rows of the shawl. I wasn't able to find anymore of that shade in my local stores, and I wasn't able to find anymore of it to buy online (not any that was reasonably priced, at least). I was about to give up, but I reached out to yarncraft designer Darleen Hopkins of Crochet by Darleen Hopkins. Darleen has made a lot of her designs using Cotton-Ease, so I explained my problem of running short of the Charcoal yarn. She did have a newer skein of that color and generously offered to sell it to me. We all know how yarn companies like to mess with their dye processes, so naturally the two versions of Charcoal weren't an exact match, but at this point in my big shawl project I was not about to give up! Thank you, thank you, Darleen, for saving me!!!

I was able to complete the Sheep Wagon Shawl pattern to length, but this is how close I came to using the entire skein Darleen sent me - just 1.4 ounces left (including the label band):

So a few days later when I decided to add the crocheted lace border, I opted to do that in black Caron Simply Soft - something STILL AVAILABLE IN MY LOCAL STORE. Hahaha!

HoB Mitts free pattern

I've been itching to make something using Lion Brand's Cotton-Ease yarn ... but it has been nearly impossible to find it. I guess all the yarn stores in my area just don't carry it. Yeah, I know, that doesn't make sense to me, either.

But I finally found some in stock at JoAnn. I'm not too sure about the color (Taupe), but I bought what I hope is enough to make a shawl.

In the meantime, I decided to experiment with a pair of fingerless mitts. This HoB Mitts pattern by Mechee Meador is very nice - quick and easy.

I used a provisional cast-on of 35 stitches so I could add an i-cord edging to the finger opening and also graft the side seam after working the thumb gusset. The other thing I did differently was to work the entire mitt in garter stitch, omitting the stockinette panel.

Asymmetrical Lines free pattern

Asymmetrical Lines by Miwa Kawamura is a very nice (and free) knitting pattern for a triangular scarf in squishy garter stitch. It's a great way to show off the colors in some striping or variegated yarn.

I had a small amount of the Hobby Lobby Jazz Stripe left over after finishing the Jazzy Infinite Granny Square blanket, so I used that yarn here and added some Boysenberry Red Heart With Love for contrast.

The designer’s third photo is very helpful in figuring out the instructions to the start of part B row 3.

Trying filet crochet

If you're ever in the mood to mix things up a little, try filet crochet.

This Heart Filet Block 2 free crochet pattern by Belle Tracy is just one example of the endless possibilities to be found in the filet crochet genre.

The block above measures about 10 by 10.5 inches with 1 round of sc border.

Rather than making a lot of individual squares and then assembling them to form a blanket, one could conceivably do a foundation row that's long enough to allow for multiple "squares" to be worked contiguously, which would be a bit of a brain-bender in the beginning but would save a lot of work on the finishing end of the job.

Jazzy Infinite Granny Square Blanket free pattern

Want to make an afghan that works up quickly and easily and looks great? Try this free Granny Square Baby Blanket Pattern by Lauren Brown. The stitch pattern is the same as for a traditional granny square, but instead of finishing off after a few rounds and having to join together a bazillion little squares to form a blanket, this version just keeps adding rounds until you reach the desired finished size. I love it - sooo easy.

I'm completely satisfied with the pattern, but I was rather displeased to discover that Hobby Lobby has altered its spin (literally) on the Jazz Stripe colorway.

I purchased the yarn that I used to begin this blanket more than a year ago, and I only had a small amount of one skein left. (See first photo.)

So I went online and ordered some more skeins of the SAME colorway with the SAME product number, but when I opened up the delivery and started working, it was immediately apparent that this new version of Jazz Stripe was exceedingly more mottled than its predecessor. (See second photo.) And what makes this even worse is that the product photo on Hobby Lobby’s website still shows the OLD version of the yarn. GRRR.

This isn’t a dealbreaker for me, and of course Hobby Lobby has every right to change its colorways. And, YES, the old and new colorways still match overall. I’m just disappointed with the change is all.

Double Warm Headband pattern modification

The first time I made the 1898 Hat, I thought the lower band portion of the hat would make a great (and warm!) headband. The only tricky part was going to be figuring out how to finish off the top edge to mirror the look of the modified i-cord used on the hat's bottom edge.

So I browsed through the hat's gallery of finished projects until I found one by Sal, who had worked the hat band as a headband, just the way I had pictured it! :-) Sal said all it takes is to work an i-cord bindoff to make the top edge of the headband look like the bottom edge.

Following the hat pattern's directions, work through the part where you pickup the stitches at the top of the band. Then, instead of knitting a crown for a hat, work an i-cord bindoff. To invisibly join the ends of the i-cord bindoff, see this video.

1898 Hat free pattern

I recently discovered this wonderful free "1898 Hat" pattern and went a little crazy making up a bunch of these hats.

There are so many reasons to love this design:

• The double-thick band is extra warm and provides complete protection for the ears.
• Because the band is worked in garter stitch, it's soft and squishy and kind of feels like you're wearing a lightweight but insulating and ooshy-cushy pillow wrapped around your head.
• It's easy to vary the finished size of the hat while using the stitch counts as written by simply altering the yarn weight and/or needle size.
• The style works for practically anyone: male or female, young or old.
• The crown design can easily be modified to achieve different looks (even though the ones I've made thus far are plain). Find a bunch of creative ideas by browsing the pattern's gallery of finished projects.
• The construction is very straightforward and not at all difficult. I especially love the modified i-cord technique used at the bottom "crease" of the hat band.

And here it is in I Love This Yarn's Jazzy Stripe colorway:

Silly Jester Sack Hat free pattern

My free Santa Sack Hat pattern is good for more than just Christmas hats. Switch up the yarn to something fun like this Red Heart Super Saver in Bon Bon Print and voila: This easy-wearing slouchy hat becomes perfect for any cold-weather occasion. I call this one a Silly Jester Sack Hat.