The Mad Hatter

OK, so I have been having a small obsession with knitting hats... I have made three hats this month (and by this month, I mean April which was actually a couple of months ago)... One of them in just one weekend!!!

My favorite Mad Hatter: Johnny Depp is just so cool. If you haven't watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland I suggest you go and treat yourself.

So I made a hat for my nephew for his 21st. My son was lucky enough to be the hat model. He so liked the hat, he requested one for himself. I was happy to oblige and then came to the sick realisation that this is the first garment I have knitted him since he was baby. I felt slightly ashamed to call myself a mother who knits. However, this was balanced by the fact that something I had knit was considered a cool enough clothing item to be coveted.

Here is the boy modelling his cousins hat. And here is the boy modelling his own hat. I made this from the same op shop wool from which I made the homework help pouch for a baby kangaroo. It's such a cool neutral-ish colour and can come across as a dirty cream, a light grey or a fawn-ish brown depending on the lighting and what clothing your pair it with. I finished this in time to call it an Easter present. There were some really bad taste jokes running around that we had turned the Easter Bunny into a hat.

Pattern: Wurm by Katharina Nopp
Needles: 4mm dpns (actually they are still labelled as size 8 - antique jumper length Aero dpns). I love these needles for knitting hats. And only $2. Best op-shop buy ever!
Yarn: 8 ply op shop sourced homespun fairly greasy wool with some flecks of other fiber. Cost about 50 cents per 200g or about 50 cents per hat.

So one highly satisfactory hat commission down. I thought I might have time to sit on my laurels and luxuriate in the glow of a job well done. However, the boys eldest sister, the future doctor daughter came home for Easter. She saw the boy's hat, promptly grabbed it, stuck it on her head, claimed it went so much better with her curls and refused to give it back until I promised to make her one too. This is despite the fact that she already has four handmade berets (see: The Beret Project Project: Chapter 1, The Beret Project:: The Second Installment and Winter Smoke: Selbu Modern Beret). We had to search her bags when she went back after Easter to make sure she hadn't accidentally on purpose absconded with the hat. (As an aside I'm patting myself on the back here as I also clearly make clothing cool enough to be the object of petty thievery!)

So there was nothing for it but to immediately cast one for a second hat. Surprisingly, it wasn't any hardship to knit the exact identical article twice in a row (The first time in my entire knitting life that I have down this). It was even fun.

Twin hats drying in front of the heater.

So now I was two hats down but I have, in fact, three children. OK, you don't have to be a mind reader to predict what is coming next. Mel, the middle daughter was pushing for it to be her turn. But not an identical beanie. She already had her eye on a cute little owl head hat from Simply Knitting issue 100.

Pattern available here

Intarsia should look just as neat from the back

Pattern: From Animal Hats by Rachel Henderson via Simply Knitting Issue 100.
Needles: Set of two 4mm needles.
Yarn: Cleckheaton Country in cream (1 ball - sourced from an op shop), Cleckheaton Country in Beige (Seconds from the Australian Country spinners Wangaratta Woolen Mills, a present from my mother after a recent trip there - she knows what it takes to make me happy) and the orangey mustard is aran weight wool from the stash which is so old I have no idea of it origins.

So I knitted this up in a weekend and had a ball doing it. Its so much fun to watch the face building up row by row. This classified as one of those "just one more row" knits, perhaps explaining why it took so little time.

And here is the owl hat in its natural environment.

Owls are the new Elephants

I used to collect elephants. I had a small obsession. They paraded across the mantlepiece, congregated in crowds on my bookshelves and infested my dressing table (mainly in jewelry form). It used to be a sort of tradition that my relatives would gift me elephants from their far-flung travels. I did this too. A certain small pink cross-eyed ceramic elephant reminds me of a trip to the Barossa Valley wineries with my family and future husband the year I finished school. However, I loathe dusting (Let's be honest here - I loathe housework in general) and so the elephant collection downsized to manageable proportions. The ones that survived the cull had to have a really memorable story attached.

When I was collecting elephant in the 90's, they were everywhere. They were literally the animal du jour for crafters everywhere. Any gallery, tourist trap, kitsch souvenir shop had a handmade elephant. It wasn't at all unusual to be an elephant collector (or all that difficult either).

I've decided that owls are the new elephants. Like an elephant you don't need to be anywhere near anatomically correct to portray an owl in craft. With an elephant, its all about the ears and the trunk and the basic body shape. For an owl, it comes down to the eyes, the beak and generally birdy shaped body.

Owls are everywhere in the craft-i-verse at the moment. I've blogged about owls before (See X is for Xmas Owls or Owlishly Warm). There are owl ornaments, owl toys and garments adorned with owls. 

So when one of my work colleagues had a baby recently, I gave into the urge and made a toy owl for him. (It is actually highly appropriate, his mother's area of research is Owls).

I didn't find anything that really grabbed me when I went pattern hunting. I knew what I wanted though. Something soft and squishy, washable and chewable, not too big for a baby to hang on to and rustic looking. So I thought, what the hell! I'll design my own. I found some scrap paper and sketched an owl to size. I haven't done a lot of designing but I understand the principles of gauge vs. finished size and find it relatively easy to crunch the mathematics to match my knitting to the shape of a paper pattern.

Here's the design sketch and the start of the body in progress.

Here's the owl in progress sitting on my lap as I work on a failed set of wings.

After all he's pretty easy. Here's My Recipe for a Cute Little Owl.

• Two basic body pieces. These are made out of a solid tweedy cotton yarn for added chew factor and durability.
• 4 circles for eyes (The outer eyes are crocheted and the black inner circles knitted).
• A tummy patch
• A shaped and stuffed sort of pointed cylindrical beak
• and two oval shaped wings.
• Garnish with button hole stitch in contrasting colors wherever possible for added cuteness.

Yarn: All DK weight (8 ply) from the stash. All natural fibres - cotton or wool or wool blend
Needles: 4mm

 

I did take notes whilst I was making this and expect to write this up as a (free) pattern just as soon as this mad marking and exams month is over. That just means I'll have to make another one or two to test the pattern!

I got published! Cool!

#a month of moments
4. Cool
One day in late October I was checking my pigeonhole at work last thing in the day on my way out the door to do the school bus pick up and there was a post-pack in it. Now parcels are a relatively rare occurrence but they usually turn out to be desk copies of rivetingly exciting new stats books. So I stopped and opened the parcel and tipped it upside down and out fell a knitting pattern book, a piece of paper and a cardboard tube. The piece of paper was a letter and it read:

"Congratulations!

 Your letter was printed in a recent issue of Simply Knitting. Thank you very much for sharing your knitting with us. Here is your prize, a pair of Millward knitting needles and a Patons pattern book.

We'd love to see what you made with your prize!

The Simply Knitting team"

Sure enough when I opened the cardboard tube there were a set of beautiful 4mm bamboo knitting needles inside. Needless to say, this totally made my day! Though I did have to explain why someone was sending me knitting needles at work to the school secretary!
I then had to wait until I got my hands on the next issue, November to find myself in print.

Here's my letter (and photo) on the letter page of the November 2012 issue 99 of Simply Knitting.

The letter says:
" Marvellous Mitts
Your lovely magazine reaches me each month in Australia thanks to my local newsagent who gets it air express delivered.
I find there are always three of four things each month I just want to knit. So I want to say a big thanks for the Owl Mitts pattern by Amanda Jones in issue 94. My girls are great fans of knitted accessories. And I love owls, especially of the wearable kind! These were such fun to knit. They didn't take much time or much yarn and in fact I made two pairs in one long weekend out of up-cycled wool from my stash and the local op shop. 
The buttons are from my grandmother's button collection, which I inherited. The creamy ones are for my daughter, and the brown owl mitts will be mine.
Jo-ann Larkins, Australia"
And the reply says:
We love the colours you've chosen, Jo-ann, and think they're superbly modelled too!
(Cool, someone likes my photography skills!). Actually the hands doing the modelling here are Mel's and the boy's. The boy is slightly miffed that the magazine has misrepresented his hands as mine. For more about the Owl mitts and a slightly out of control photoshoot that resulted in this photo go and read the post Owlishly Warm. It was also really cool that they printed what I sent them unedited.

And here's my prize. A set of Millward 4mm Bamboo needles and a Pattern Book for Patons Fusion. I absolutely love the needles but don't think I'll use the pattern book as we don't have that particular Patons yarn in Australia yet. Also I'm a thinnish yarn sort of girl. 8ply (DK or worsted weight) is about as thick as I like to go.

(And my coolest Christmas Present was a subscription to Simply Knitting from my Mum and sisters!)

X is for Xmas Owls

My sister was sure that O would have been for Owl. But really I was saving it up.

My sister and my nephew gave me a special owl ornament for my Christmas tree a few weeks ago. Xav was supposed to give it to me when he came to build the gingerbread house but he dropped it on the concrete and is smashed into smithereens. So my sister bought me another one. Here it is on my tree.

 

I'm thinking next year, the whole tree can be just owl ornaments. 'Cos an owl is for Christmas.
Christmas Owl decorations by Pickle-Lily

Pine Cone Owl Ornaments by Crazy little thing called love!

Needle Felted knitting Owl ornament by Scratchcraft on Etsy.

Hand stitched felt Owl ornaments by RawBone Studio on Etsy.

Colourful Crochet Owl Ornaments by ATERGcrochet on Etsy

Laser cut Wooden Owl and ball of yarn ornament by Tangerine8 on Etsy. She also makes awesome Tardis knitting needle gauges. Hint please Santa

Christmas Owl ornamant hand embroidered with geometric shapes by AnAstridEndevor on Etsy

Owl ornament by amosthefamous on Etsy

Fused and stained glass Owls by The Glass Cabin on Etsy

Knitted Owl Ornament by Woodsy Wools on Etsy

Felt Owl Ornaments by Ordinary Mommy on Etsy.

I'm making my own own owl ornaments using this tutorial by Jessica Levitt of Juicy-bits.

Here's the first one. Still not stuffed yet though.

I'm gonna have a little bit of break now. Y and Z will be coming after Christmas is all finished.

S is for Socks

At the beginning of this #a month of A to Z challenge, I already knew what S was. I have a list of blog topics on the blackboard in the kitchen and S has been up on the side all ticked off since the beginning. I did toy for a while with S is for Stash (but manged to work Stash photos into K is for Knitting). I think that I am going to post about taming the stash sometime in the new year though. S is for Shawls or S is for Scarves were also briefly considered and discarded.

I love sock knitting. I'm not obsessed or anything. I do knit lots of other things. But I really the love the challenges of socks. Wrangling four needles to knit in the round. I'm old school enough to prefer double pointed needles not circulars. The mental concentration in turning a heel and the mathematical beauty of the process. Their portability and how quickly they grow. I love entertaining and amazing crowds on public transport with a sock in progress.

So this post is an indulgence to the beauty inherent in a hand knitted sock as well as virtual aide-de-memoire of awesome socks whose patterns I have been squirreling away for a rainy day. These are all top down socks and all of these are free patterns!

I have a sock wish list: I've ticked one pair of socks off it so far this year, the Tribute socks by Brenda Patipa. (You can read more about these socks here Knitting gymnastics: Tribute socks)

Now I want to make:
Rivercat by Brenda Patipa. Free pattern on Knitty. (It's just possible that I think Brenda designs very cool socks).

Treetop by Heidi M. Scheppmann. Free pattern in Knitty. This one is a little tricky and you should see how many charts it has! But has to be the best cable sock I have ever seen.

Monkey Socks by Cookie A. Free pattern available from Knitty. Everyone (and possibly their sock monkeys too) seem to have knitted this sock. As of December 2012, there were 16,106 projects for this sock on Ravelry!

Longitudinal by Nicola Susen. Free pattern from Knitty. These are knitted sideways. Looks like a really interesting challenge (and I have wool biding its time in the stash just waiting to be knit into these).

This colour

Owlie socks by Julie Elswick Suchomel. Free pattern download from Ravelry. The little owl eyes are knitted in beads. Cool way to master another new technique.

And I think this is just the stash wool for them. This is Wisdom Poems Sock Yarn in the Colour Pumpkin Patch.

Pomatomas Socks by Cookie A. Free pattern in Knitty.

You can see how gorgeous the pattern is in this photo

Socks someone wants me to make for them! For my daughter's friend with the shark obsession. Shark Socks by the Tsock Tsarina. Sadly only available to participants in her sock club at the moment. I'm having a serious go at trying to track down a kit! I do have a bloggy friend in the US who has a kit and thinks it's too difficult for her, so I'm trying to cajole her to send them to me to knit. (I even offered to pay for them). The sock in the top picture is my favourite.