Chinese Waves Hat

Phew, the third baby hat in a week! When I found out my sister only had one hat for her London winter baby, well, I had to do something! He was born this morning (well, 10pm 28th November, which was 9 am 29th in Australia), and I'm posting the "Hat Pack" tomorrow.

I love the Chinese Waves pattern. It's fast, easy, and effective. I had to adapt it to work in the round, which took a little trial and error.

Classic Chinese Waves is :
Row 1 : Knit (right side of knitting)
Row 2 : * Knit 1, Slip 1 (purlwise) * across, ending with Knit 1
Row 3 : Knit
Row 4 : Knit 2 * Slip 1 (purlwise), Knit 1 * across, ending with Knit 1

To work in the round on circular / double-point needles, and have the pattern show on the outside of the hat, this is what I did :

Row 1 : Knit
Row 2 : * Purl 1, Slip 1 (knitwise) * to end of row
Row 3 : Knit
Row 4 : * Slip 1 (knitwise), Purl 1 * to end of row

I found it useful to place a row marker (I just used a piece of orange wool) at the start of each Row 1.

Lemon Hat

This cute Lemon Hat is for my new nephew! I used the pattern from Brook's Tuttie Cutie Fruity Hats. It's made with 8 ply pure wool, and knitted up quickly. I hope it's soft enough, though... I would probably have got a softer hat if I'd used the 75% acrylic/25% wool blend that Brook uses.

Baby Flapper Hat

This hat is for my sister's new baby (who is in the process of being born as I type!)... it's my adaptation of the Flapper Hat design (from Keepsakes from Mother's Table). The lace is a simple Feather and Fan pattern. Let's hope she has a girl, cos she'll look like a little flower wearing this ;)

Jumper reborn

Last month I finally decided to unravel this lovely jumper, which I'd made way back around 1985, in Totem. It was knitted on circular needles, which were less common back then. I was taught how to use them by a Danish friend... but I didn't wear it that often, and not at all in the past decade. It had a hole in the sleeve too (not in a place where there was supposed to be a hole).



The unravelling turned into balls of wool, which I washed carefully. Then I realised that balls of wool don't dry very well, so had to turn the balls into skeins. Lots of winding and untangling!



I'm now knitting the gorgeous aqua-blue Totem into a lacy shrug, and saving the pink and cream Totem for another project.

My French Market Bag

This is the first knitting project I did (after a 2-decade break!). I loved the yarn (Twilley's Freedom Wool) and the pattern (French Market Bag on Knitty). However, once I felted it, it shrank heaps in one direction, and less in the other, and ended up being terribly shallow and floppy, as you can see.


This picture shows what it looked like before I felted it. It was too shallow. Very very too shallow. I know. Hind-sight and all that. Blast.

I've since added a big button on top of one handle, and an i-cord loop to the other handle, which sort of helps to hold the contents in one place, but not very well. Bugger it. I might add a fabric drawstring top, stitched around the top edge... Taphophile's idea, to be fair ;)

So it's living in my bedroom, hiding until the day I can face up to trying to make it work. It was so damned expensive too! Aaaargh....

Why oh why?

I don't know why I'm doing this... but here it is, a Blog (when I'd vowed I'd never have one)!

Anyway. I got back into knitting a few months ago, after a 20 year break - I blame my dear friend Taphophile for this, and the Knitty web site. It's good fun. So I'll share pics of projects, and disasters, and any patterns I happen to make up.

I might also post pics of various artworks I create, you never know. Anything is possible!