Off the hook: the Marion slouch

“You look like a total stoner.”

That’s what my tactful husband told me when I modelled my latest crochet project for him. To be fair we had just stepped off the beach and I was still in my cossie and caftan. I must have looked a state, but sometimes you’ve just got to show off the hat you’ve just finished even if the overall effect makes you look like you have a problem. I was just happy he didn’t tell me I looked like a garden gnome.

I said in my last post that I’m not usually much of a beach person. I like to get out and explore, so having something to occupy my brain (and my hands) while sitting on a lounger was a must for me. So I picked the furthest thing from beachwear I could think of to make on a sunny holiday – a woolly hat. I like small projects like this, especially when I’m on holiday – small enough to fit in my carry on, works up in a day or so and can be squeezed out of a single skein. My one-skein-wonder this time was the Marion hat by Little Monkeys Crochet, which is available for free on her blog.

Poolside crochet. I was just starting the band here, but you can also see some nice details in the body of the hat.

Before I talk about the pattern, let’s take a second to admire the yarn. Back in August we visited Friday Harbor, which is a little town on San Juan Island near the Canadian border. We found a little shop called Island Wools who dye their own products, and I fell in love with their Whimsical Colors DK weight yarn. It’s just gorgeous! The variation in colour is beautiful – I bought a skein of purple to make a baby cardigan and the colour ranges from light blue in places to deep purple, with everything in between. The colour changes in the grey (Silver Fox) I also bought are more subtle, but just as lovely. I made another baby cardigan with that grey, and needed a tiny bit extra to complete the button band so I bought an extra skein, and used the remainder for the hat.

It’s another Swing Set Cardi! I’ve made a million of these – more details here.

The Marion pattern itself is super simple to follow, and I’d say that if you’ve crocheted something in round (like a granny square), you can probably make this without any issues. It’s written in US annotation and only uses two stitches – single and half-double crochet (or double and half-treble if you’re used to UK-style patterns). The interest comes with using them to create texture. For example, the raised stitches are done by going into the back loop of the previous hdcs, rather than the top two loops. It makes it look like I’ve chained-stitched on top but without the faff. I like it.

Although there are only two stitches involved in the pattern, I did pick up a new skill! The Marion hat is started off using the magic loop method, which eliminates the hole you’d get if you used a foundation chain loop. I’d tried doing this several times before but could never get my head round it – I’m left-handed and find following instructions for right-handed people really confusing, so I used to give up and just use a foundation chain instead. Not this time! I found a YouTube video and cracked on. It’s not that hard, but it took me a couple of goes to get it right.

The other thing I’d say about this pattern is to make sure you follow its advice and count your stitches. My finished article is probably a few stitches bigger than it should be because I didn’t count properly. However, my head is abnormally large (no jokes, thanks) and I often struggle to find hats that fit me, so a bit of extra width is probably no bad thing in my case. But if you’re blessed with an average-sized bonce, make sure you check your stitch count – it’ll make the difference.

I do love this hat – it was a quick and fun project for my holiday and since I’ve been back in colder climes it’s been keeping my head nicely warm. If I was nitpicking, I’d maybe want a bit of extra length to make it a bit slouchier, but that’s easy to add in (just add an extra pattern repeat into the body once you’ve increased to 100 stitches round). It was a great one-skein wonder and now I’m eyeing up other hat patterns on the Little Monkeys site… Maybe the Barista or the Shiplap slouch???

Craft envy: what’s caught my eye recently?

Don’t you just love the internet? So useful for all sorts of things, not least for gaining a bit of inspiration and gasping at other people’s skill and ingenuity (and of course, cats). I could, and indeed do, spend a lot of time looking at blogs and wishing I had a) more imagination and b) more time to have a go at everything I see.

So here’s what’s been provoking my craft envy recently:

Owls. They’re frickin’ everywhere.

I like a good owl, and that’s probably a good thing ‘cos they’re all over the internet at the moment. You can knit them, crochet them, wear them or use them to decorate your home, but you can’t escape them.

Tasia of Sewaholic has knitted herself Kate Davies’ Owls jumper which uses cables and buttons to form the owls in the yoke. Tasia has omitted the buttons, but you get the idea. Now, I can do twisty cables but only in straight pieces of knitting. If I can learn to knit in shapes, I don’t think fancy cables is beyond the realms of possibility. This could be a project for the distant future.

 

I also quite like this owl basket by Deja Jetmir, the pattern for which is available on Craftsy. I think it’s the pointy ears, the cute little beak and the subtlety of using a single colour. The pattern suggests that the finished product would be big enough to hold a bunch of towels, but I think this could work on a smaller scale with thinner yarn and a smaller hook. Hell, you could make a whole family of them!

Sticking with home decor, here’s an owl crochet rug with a bit of a 60s vibe (pattern available on Etsy). There are many owl rugs out there, but this one caught my eye due to the designer’s use of colour. It’s as if an owl mated with a parrot and had magical chicks. Anyway, you’re never going to see one in the wild, but does it really matter?

Finally on the owl front, there’s hats! And cushions! Jess over at A Crafty Blog is going a bit nuts for owls too, having made some super-cute hats and cushions. The best thing? She’s posting tutorials!

Crochet stitches for new skills

I’m quite new to Pinterest, but I’m pleased to see they’ve just introduced a new way to search and discover new things based on the things you’ve already pinned, and the boards you’ve followed. I’ve been finding all sorts of stuff I didn’t know existed and therefore didn’t know I wanted to try…  I can do all the basic stitches, clusters, popcorn, fans etc but it’s time to do something new and exciting. Search on ‘crochet stitches’ on Pinterest and you’ll see what I mean.

• Ripple stitch – I forget where I spotted this stitch but I sought it out only to find that it’s on a Danish blog! With a bit of research I found out that the author has published in English too. After breathing a sigh of relief I bought the English translation of her book from Ravelry. I think a new hat to go with my basket weave scarf (more on that in a later post) is in order.
• I like anything that doesn’t quite look like it’s crochet, so things like raised stitches and cables really take my fancy – would be interested to see just how much yarn they take up though…
• I’m sure I have seen star stitch in a book of baby clothes I have. However, with the babies I know growing at unbelievable speeds it’s unlikely they’d be in that cute little duffel jacket for long.

And if anyone can tell me how to get a Pinterest button on this blog, I’d be very appreciative!

Granny ripple blanket

Again, I can’t remember where I saw this initially but someone pointed me to this blog post on how to expand on your granny square skills. I like a granny square, don’t get me wrong, but I like this fresh (to me at least) take on how to use the stitch. You can do a granny square. You can do a ripple. Why not put them together? There’s a tutorial here at the Lazy Hobbyhopper’s blog and I feel a blanket coming on.