mutteringhousewife

Having looked through many knitting and crochet patterns lately and I’ve come to the conclusion that most of them you wouldn’t be seen dead in a ditch in. What is it about yarn craft and really horrible clothing? Do you know of anyone who’d actually want a woollen daisy brooch? Seriously! No wonder so much of it is intended for babies, they can’t get away.

Beanies are the exception. I’ve seen many beanie patterns that look both possible and good, and I’ve finished two and am contemplating a third. You’ve seen the first one, and here’s the second.

I’m not, you know, ecstatic about it. I think I’ve put the crown in upside down, but crochet looks OK either side. The brim is done in Tunisian stitch, which produces a very pleasing almost material like result, but isn’t very stretchy, so not the greatest choice for a brim. It was fun to do though, you do it on a long crochet hook. You collect all the loops onto the hook in one row, then the next row is almost exactly like casting off knitting. You don’t turn the hook around between rows, so you feel a bit like you’re operating a typewriter. I did a lot of it during Monsters University, which was very cute but not as entertaining as the first movie, which I saw approximately four hundred times before the DVD disintegrated.

But I needed a black and white beanie to watch the boys playing soccer. It actually looks better on.

All the baggy bits stretch out. It’s quite close fitting, so will mess up the wild and free hair thing I have going, which is why the next one I’ll make will be a slouchy beanie. Just have to choose the colour.

I’m also in the process of doing some fingerless gloves, which I’m finding fairly boring. So instead I did a scrunchie.

That was very easy, I did it during Star Wars Three, which the Horror was watching in between jumping on the trampoline and decrapulating his school bag. You just take a hair elastic, the kind you buy in packs of twenty because the dogs tend to eat them if you leave them around. None of the instructions actually tell you how to get the wool on the elastic, they just say sc around the elastic. What you do is stick your needle into a slip stitch. Then you poke your needle into the middle of the elastic and draw the wool up with the hook and through the slip stitch. Then you alternate drawing the wool through the middle of the elastic and from the outside of the elastic as you form each stitch. You just pack as many stitches on there as you can fit. The you can knock yourself out with what you do next. I just sc’d twice into each of the first row, then every second one in the second row and every third in the third row. Makes a ruffly scrunchie that your daughter will immediately wrap around her ponytail when she comes home from pony camp. Could make good birthday presents. The dogs definitely won’t be interested in eating them either.

So next is a slouchy beanie, and then a round one with a brim that I’m going to make in red for a friend. Not sure what pattern I’m going to use yet, but don’t worry. She did ask for it, I’m not inflicting it on her. I should be fairly good at it by the time I get up to that one.