High street cap

Summer came and went, and as predicted I did zero knitting after finishing the Petrie shell. But with the first chill, I picked up once again the Sweetheart jumper and have now almost finished the back. At this rate, I might be done next summer!

So I needed an instant gratification project to make me a bit more optimistic about finishing projects, and, well, get back into knitting again. When I joined the WI I used one of the vouchers that I got to subscribe to a craft magazine called Mollie Makes, and other than a crochet bow kit I hadn't really delved into any of the projects included. I remember seeing a cool-looking hat (called high street cap), but sadly it was not in one of the issues that I already had. Nevertheless, I figured that $4 isn't really that much, especially for a project that I might make more than once.


It turned out to be the best possible project I could have picked, as it was super-fast, probably took just over two hours! Knit using bulky yarn and 8mm circular needles (the pattern calls for 9mm needles, but I don't have any), the hat is basically an easy to memorize sequence of ribs followed by yarn overs to create an eyelet rib.

I followed the pattern exactly, but it felt a little too short, sitting quite high above my ears, so I finished it with three rows of half-double crochet on the rib to make it a little longer - I think if I were to make it again I would probably do another pattern repeat. Also, it feels a little loose so I would also be tempted to do the first pattern repeat on 7mm or even 6mm needles to make it tighter around the base. The looseness might also be because I blocked it, which I think stretched it out a bit.

As for the yarn, well the only bulky wool I had was the leftover Rowan cocoon from my Lore hoodie, which I had swore not to use ever again as it is super sheddy and annoying because of the mohair. Well, I went back on that, covered myself in tiny hairs as if I had a white cat, and ended up trying to trim the mohair off the top to stop it being so fuzzy. I am certainly never buying this yarn again, despite it being very soft. 

Here it is worn

And here you can see the pattern detail a bit more clearly

Petrie - the final chapter

The saga of the Petrie shell from Knitty is finally over. In case you weren't following, this was a project I started at the end of April as something summery I could finish fairly quickly. Well, it clearly wasn't! Maybe it was the many distractions (conference in Italy, wedding in Greece), maybe it was the endless stockinette... Regardless, this felt like it was never going to be finished.


Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as they say, and there are many many things I would have changed in this pattern - no offence to the pattern designer, but for me several things were plain unnecessary. To be honest I only have myself to blame, if I had read it properly and in full before starting I would have been able to make the changes anyway. So here goes. This is definitely something that can be knitted in the round. I would have just knitted it in the round until the armhole, at which point I would have separated the front and the back and the re-joined at the top with the three-needle bind-off, as written in the pattern. No boring purling and no counting rows to make sure that I have knitted exactly the same on each side (the pattern only specifies inches in length, not rows). And no messy sewing - it took me forever to stitch the two sides together with a kitchener stitch, which I concluded is the only way to do it if you don't want an ugly seam on each side. Oh, and much much fewer ends to weave in, another thing I find absolutely boring.

On the same note, I would not have done the hem, at least not the bottom one. I can see why she designed it that way, but as you may have concluded, I do not like sewing. I sewed both top and bottom hems with the yarn at first, but then when I put the top on the top one was curling down too much and showing the stitching on the inside, so I had to re-do it with some thread to even it out a bit more.

I thought I might add a note here about the wonders of blocking. See the photo below, you will notice how much the stitching is raised in the middle - I was actually quite worried that this unevenness would not go away, but thankfully it did. I actually soaked the top in some water with eucalan (which does not need rinsing), scrunched the water out by rolling in a towel and laid it flat for a couple of days until it dried.  

Before

After

There are still two issues with this top, however. The neck sits quit funny (see photo below) - perhaps I should have blocked it in a different way, but I just can't make it less floppy at the moment. The second is that, as soon as I wore it the bit near my waist creased in a weird way that looks like I have a roll of fat underneath (I swear, I don't!) So perhaps I need to re-block it to sort these issues out. Or just learn to live with them. At least it is not transparent, as I had feared, so can definitely be worn on it own.

Not as good a photo as the previous one. But at least it's finally summer in London!

Emergency procrastination - short and sweet bolero

This was running the risk of becoming a graveyard of unfinished knitting projects, but thankfully I have finally finished something. And no, it is not the Petrie shell or the sweetheart jumper. I decided last weekend that I needed an emergency bolero or shrug to wear to a wedding this past Saturday. Which meant that I had to be done super quickly. Which meant a crochet project.


When I first learnt to crochet a few years ago I picked up the "happy hooker" stitch 'n bitch book to get to grips with the basics and to practice with some projects. I think one of the first things I ever made was the fit to be tied bag (made twice now) as a cute an easy project, and then became more adventurous and attempted the cupcake top (which I occasionally wear, although the bamboo yarn means it had stretched out a bit). But one of the projects that I always had my eye on was the short and sweet bolero, as a cute little cardie to wear in the summer.

So the choice for which bolero/shrug to make was easy. And yes, it was in fact pretty speedy, although it did involve some furious, non-stop crocheting on the whole of that Sunday to get the body done (achy hands!), plus a couple of hours on the Monday and Tuesday to do the sleeves. I had some issues following this pattern which are not new apparently ( I found quite a few helpful comments on Ravelry), and when making the right front I ended up following the chart rather than the written pattern. Otherwise it was pretty easy to do and memorise.

The yarn is rico cotton, which is aran weight rather than worsted, so I decided to go for the smallest size (naughtily did not check my gauge) and that worked out great. Although I did find that, as a result of the weighty yarn, the bolero was heavier than expected. This means that it holds its shape very well though, but still I think I may have preferred to make it with dk in a bigger size. Incidentally, that was my plan, as I have a tunic in dk weight that I never wear, but despite my efforts I totally failed at picking it.

Anyway, the good news is that I have a decent photo of me modelling it for a change,  so you do not have to endure yet another grumpy-looking selfy! Thankfully taken after only two glasses of champagne too :p

yay! she smiles at last

Baking gone a bit wrong - honey and peanut butter bars

My friend was coming to stay for a few days, and trying to play good hostess I asked her what she wanted to have for breakfast - given that we are a weird household when it comes to this supposedly important meal and either skip it entirely or just have cereal bars. So I bought a big box of porridge oats for her, but then was left with a dilemma: what to do with the remainder? Well, I'd been meaning to make the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's honey and peanut butter bars, and now was my chance.

Stuck at home on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I decided to give them a go. Of course any normal person would read the recipe, go to the shop and buy the ingredients etc etc. But not me, in the spirit of experimentation I decided that, even though I didn't have enough of most of the things needed to make these bars, I would press on.

Not enough butter? No problem, instead of 125 grams I just used the 50 grams that I had, thinking I could supplement with peanut butter. But no, not enough peanut butter either, so I just chucked in the pan 140 grams, desperately trying to scrape as much as possible out of the jar. No oranges? Just try and zest an already zested orange to get a teency bit of zest out, supplementing instead with the juice of said orange and the zest of two lemons instead of one. And who weighs honey? Its a pain to even get off the spoon in the first place, let alone getting it off the spoon, onto the scales, off the scales and into the pan (some hindsight googling reveals that one tablespoon, which is what I used, is about 15 grams, so again, way off the 45 grams the recipe calls for). Oh yeah, and the the mixture didn'y quite fit the dish, so I left a gap. What could be the harm.

Well, they didn't quite work. They taste nice (and actually sweet enough, so not sure about the sugar and honey quantities) but the consistency is  different to the ones I had tried before, I assume because of the reduced fat content and reduced amount of honey. And of course, in the spirit of totally ignoring the recipe, I cut them too soon so they crumbled a bit more than they should have. But I guess not bad for such a deviation from the original!

So the moral of the story is, don't stay in on a sunny day and stick to the recipe.

Edit: I am assured that they don't taste like they went wrong, so maybe not such a disaster after all.