something out of the ordinary

It's crocheted, and it's amazing. Made by Sage, who very generously sent it to me. When you're done being amazed at her art in hat form, check out her podcast, please. It's the one podcast I listen to as soon as it downloads, every day, without fail. Listen to her archives, send her stories and answers, and donate to her Donors Choose project if you can spare a couple of bucks.

And as if I didn't already want to learn to spin (thanks to bloggers everywhere) and weave (thanks to Syne), now I'm eyeing the crochet hooks in my accessories drawer in a new light. Crocheted colorwork. Hmm...


While on the topic of hats, here are my much less impressive hat offerings for the day:



My first two baby hats, both in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock leftovers. As it happens, both in CTH leftovers from socks other people knit. (Somehow, their leftovers ended up in my sock yarn drawer. Imagine that!) One of them is a modified version of Grumperina's Odessa, knit on size 1 needles, without beads, and with 90 stitches to start instead of 110. It ended up slightly pointy (probably because of the stitch count), but as baby heads are often pointy, I don't consider this a flaw. Also notice the dye lot change at the top, when I ran out of Carol's yarn, and had to use a few yards of my own version of the same colorway. (We both independently chose the same colorway for our Jaywalkers. Mine was a billion times brighter than hers. Major dye lot differences!) I think I actually like the inside of the hat more, though both sides are pretty cool.

The other one is just 88 stitches of 2x2 ribbing (on size 3 needles), with a stockinette spiral on top. While the little Odessa will fit a smallish full term or a preemie head, the ribbed hat should stretch to fit a larger than average newborn head, if necessary. I can't wait to drop these in the baby hat box at my LYS tonight. If any of you are in the Keene area and have machine washable yarn scraps you want to use up, whip up some baby hats and drop them off. They're surprisingly satisfying little projects. Especially if you have a huge rubber duck to model them on.

EDIT: I got a couple of questions about the ribbed hat, and thought I'd edit this post to give more complete instructions on how to make one of your own. It doesn't take much yarn - no more than 20 grams of fingering weight according to my scale. For the hat pictured above, I cast on 88 stitches (on size 3 needles), knit in k2p2 ribbing until it was 3.5" - 4", knit a round of stockinette, and then started decreasing. To get that nice spiral, mentally break up your hat into 8 sections. It helps if your knitting is spread out over 4 DPNs, though that is of course not a necessity. If you cast on 88 stitches, your first decrease round will be (k9 k2tog) around. Follow that with a plain stockinette round, and then (k8 k2tog) around. Follow that with a plain stockinette round and... you probably get the picture. At the end, when there are only a few stitches left, just draw the yarn through and weave it in on the inside. I just knit a similar hat with only 80 stitches, and I think that is actually plenty big for a newborn hat, too. These things stretch a lot, so they should be good for a variety of new baby (and duck) heads.

While I'm at it, how about a SFCKAL update?

• Becki has a finished a colorwork stocking in the yarn she salvaged from her dead SFCKAL sweater, and a photo of the Snow Sky she's started.


• Helen has a photo of her Seaweed for Sheryl, which is exciting, because I think this is the first photo I've seen of this sweater in progress.


• TJ has a photo of the progress on her Vertical Stripes sleeve, and discusses her design decisions for the sleeve.


• Oh yeah, and I finished my Vertical Stripes pullover a little while ago. But you already knew that, right?