FO: Snail Hat and a Hill Country Hat

Surprise! I made another bunch of freaky little handspun hats. These ones started out as fleece; this was actually the very first raw fleece that I processed myself.



It's a CVM from a farm in California, and just like every time I'm in sunny California, it had a bit of sunburn on the tips. I washed and carded into rolags, and then spun it up into a lofty bulky-weight 2-ply yarn.







It was fuzzy and soft and a bit rustic looking. I promptly threw it in a bin and forgot about it for a few years, until this weird hat craze got me pawing through my stash for good odd skeins of handspun to hattify.

First up is a smaller hat- I made this for a gift for a child. It's not toddler-small, but it's big enough for a bruiser of a 3 year old.



It's the Snail Hat from Elizabeth Zimmerman. I already made one of these with some core-spun yarn, and I like it in a good fuzzy 2-ply much better. It's a very easy, rhythmic quick hat.



The second hat is the Hill Country Hat from the Knitter's Book of Wool. Love that book.



I'm a little meh on this hat. It has some interesting corrugated rib patterns that you really can't see because the yarn is too fuzzy. I will try this hat again, but with a worsted-spun yarn that will show stitch definition better.



The pattern is just completely lost in the yarn. Ah well. It's warm though.

I haven't been spinning too much, but I did sample my next big spinning project:



It's Muriel, the Merino fleece that got sent away to a Zellinger's. It's going to be something beautiful if I ever get around to spinning it.

I'm also finishing up Another Sweater. This one is the Coraline pattern.



It's very fine gauge and it's taking me a while, but it's an easy pattern. I feel like I could do the smocking in my sleep at this point. It's pretty much done, but I completely lost my head when it came to measuring and the sleeves ended up about two inches shorter than where they needed to be. I'm fixing that quick like a bunny and it will be done. I guess I won't have to go naked at Rhinebeck this year.

FO: Icing Swirl Hat

The bumper crop of hats I have made are threatening to burst out of my winter woollies drawer. Some people in colder climates better have some birthdays coming up soon or this could get dire.

This one started out as a couple of wee braids of Capistrano Fiber Arts superfine merino.



I'm not sure what the color was called. Sometimes they aren't labeled. I pulled the braids apart and meticulously separated the different colors into piles- brown, tan and red. I carded each color into a separate batt, and then alternated when I was spinning so the yarn would stripe up when plied.





I spun it woolen and ended up with a worsted-weight 2 ply. I had about 280 yards total. After my last slightly bummer of a beret (now beanie) I decided to be brave and go for a slouchy big hat once again.



The pattern is the Icing Swirl Hat from Whimsical Little Knits. It's fairly simple to make. You start with an I-cord and it grows from there. There are some short rows in the back to give it a slouch shape. I like having a hat where you can pile all your hair underneath and hide it there rather than try to neatly arrange it while trying to fight static. Just hide it. It's easier that way.

On hindsight, I probably could have been a bit more aggressive blocking this out to a baggier shape. I'm always a little careful when I block anything handspun- I consider it just a little more fragile than a commercial yarn and I usually slowly block it out in stages rather than have a cartoonish struggle involving pins and upturned mixing bowls and wet wool.



A good blocking will also open up the lace a bit more, making the swirl more visible. I'm quite thrilled with the striping. It's also so soft, and really warm without being incredibly heavy. I love merino- I forget I love it as much as I do, and then I spend some touch time with it and it wiggles its way to the top of my love list again. The whole hat only used about 100 yards, so I have enough yardage leftover to, uh, make another hat I guess. Maybe I'll shake things up and make a cowl.

FO: Star-Crossed Hat

Oh, surprise, I made another hand spun hat. Giftmas will be easy and breezy affair for me this year. I hope.

This started out as two equally beautiful bits of fiber- a bump of baby camel and silk blend, plus some AVFKW club fiber of dyed Polworth.



The color was called "Rosemary".



I carded both of these together and ended up with 3 oz of soft, silky fiber. I pulled out the colors into sections so it would get muddy, but would have a more tweedy effect. I spun it up as a 2-ply worsted weight.





The blended color has really gentle shifts of purple and green. I loved it- it was soft and drapes nicely and it's very warm. I only ended up with 120 yards.

I choose the Star Crossed Slouchy beret as a pattern. I started running scarce on yardage, so I skipped six rows of the pattern before I ran out...this means I don't have a slouchy beret. I have a beanie.



Which is fine by me- I like the giant undulating cables and sometimes you have to just go with it until you run out. It's a pretty hat and I could always make another one when I feel like yardage won't be such an issue. I think it would be quite stunning in a blend that includes a little angora- something with a soft halo.



It seems like a ridiculously warm hat by summer standards. The thought crosses my mind on hot and muggy days that no one will ever need a hat this warm again in the history of the planet. However, the days are starting to grow noticeably shorter, and early mornings now call for an urgent scramble to find a long-abandoned and heavily wrinkled sweater from the depths of the wardrobe.

FO: Chunky Rib Hat

The insanity continues.

A 2oz braid of yet another bump of Capistrano hanpainted. This one is BFL. My A-Z stashdown is rolling right along...



The color is "Seychelles". Blue and purple and red cool jewel tones.

Again, with the singles.



I'm trying really hard to make thick, lofty yarns that are even in thickness. It's a huge challenge for me. Lace is my thing.



I feel like progress is being made.

I only ended up with 54 yards of this. BFL is a very dense wool, and it doesn't have crimp like merino does. It has more like a wave. A bit more fluffing or pre-drafting would have given me more yardage.

Luckily, you can do a hat with very little yardage.



This is the Chunky Rib Hat. It's one of those hats that you barely need a pattern for, but the Yarn Princess wrote it out for us. It took about an hour. total.



It's rows of knit stitches. It's rows of purl stitches. It's stretchy and you don't have to worry so much about gauge. If you have the yardage, you can keep going a few extra rows, or cut it off if need be. It will still stretch over your head okay.



The only modification I made was the crown decreases. I had a bit more yarn left than I wanted to have tucked away unused, so instead of decreasing every row, I snuck in a row of plain knit between each row. It's a more gradual decrease and rounded top.

Easy-peasy on size 13 needles. Another skein of handspun, converted from my stash to my winter woolens drawer.

FO: Wisp

Remember the Buffalo down I spun last year? It was decidedly a pain in the ass to spin, but I was happy with the finished yarn.

Finding a project for it was another story though. I cast on for several before finding the right one. I kept trying to make a lace cowl with it...it's soft and there was enough yardage to make a big wimple type thing. The problem was that the yarn has absolutely no memory or spring to it, making the lace sloppy looking. It reminded me of the webs that spiders had spun when researches got them flying around on LSD.

Wow man. Just wow. Not what I had in mind.

I finally figured out that a lace cowl was not what this yarn was calling out to be. I had a couple of friends who had made a Wisp, and it seemed like the simple lace structure would do the yarn justice.





It's very lightweight and the lace pattern is stretchy. I need to find some light buttons so this could be buttoned up and worn either as a scarf, möbius, cowl, hood, or wrapped around your neck twice for extra warmth. It's a perfectly simple pattern and a great way to wear a soft, special handspun close to your skin.

I used size 7 needles and knitted until I was almost out of yarn/sick of the pattern and couldn't go on any longer. B is for Buffalo (or Bison) and this is part of my A-Z stashdown. Which, you know...I'm almost done with the letter B.

FO- Handspun Artyarn Snail Hat

I've been admiring this pattern from E-Z for years now. I've had a few friends make them, but I loved my friend Knithound Brooklyn's the best.



She used her fabulous handspun and I just loved the colors.

I decided to take the artyarn plunge and use my corespun yarn for this pattern.



I've never knit with corespun, so I wasn't quite sure what I was in for. I ended up being better suited for something that needs a lot of drape. It had no real structure, so it probably wasn't the best choice for a hat that I wanted to have a pointy top.



Oh, that weird bump? Not a giant tumor. It's my hair- I had it pulled up in a high bun. Shoving my hair into the top of the hat is the only way I could get it from flopping over.



It's not bad. The yarn is kind of on the thin side for this pattern, and it's a bit too busy to see the swirls really clearly. I really want to make this hat again with a big, downy chunky yarn to do it justice.

It did knit up very fast- I think I started it while I was getting a pedicure and had it halfway done by the time my nails were dry. It might have taken a bit over 2 hours total. I can't wait to make another one. It's very easy on the yardage and it's super cute. This particular one isn't especially warm, but with the right yarn it could be.

The specs: I used size 10 needles and about 90 yards of my aran-ish weight handspun from a Butterfly Girl Batt. More about the corespun yarn I made back in October here. It's part of my A-Z stashdown challenge as well.

FO- Hurricaine Hat

I spent a lot of time last week on the subway going to various events and parties. Taking the subway means 1. I might get a strange new disease and end up in a medical textbook and 2. I can finish a hat in two days without breaking a sweat.

Well, not quite two days. This did start out life as a fibery beast.



3.8 oz of handcarded batt from Butterfly Girl. It was a blend of 67% bamboo, 25% merino and 8% glitz. Very sparkly. It sat in my spinning stash for a couple years, and then I dug it out as part of my spinning stash bust in October.

I spun it up and made a DK weight 2-ply. I got about 154 yards from 3.4 oz of fiber. The colorway is "Curtain Dress", which makes me happy.



I loved the swirly-whirly look, so I knitted up the Hurricaine Hat.



The mostly-bamboo content means this isn't terribly warm, but it does have nice drape. It will be a really usefull hat to have around come the not-so-bitter spring if it doesn't get nabbed by someone before then. I always like to have a handful of fun little hats on hand to give as gifts.



I wish I would have stepped into direct sunlight for the pictures. This looks like a disco ball in the right light. It was really fast and an easy knit.

FO- handspun Victorian Shoulderette

I've become addicted to project spinning. It's not a bad thing. I used to spin for the sake of spinning, and then end up with hundreds of yards of yarn that I wasn't particularly inspired by. It would just sadly sit around in a bin, waiting for a moth to cozy up to it, or perhaps for me to get my act together and create something that didn't look like clown barf.

This was part of my conscientious effort to create yarn that would make a beautiful, wearable finished project.

The Fiber:


A Verb for Keeping Warm in Rainer Cherries. This was the July club selection. It's 3 oz of a 80% merino, 20% silk blend. I split the roving in half lenghtwise and spun each half up as a ply.



I ended up with 300 yards of fingering weight yarn.



It's very soft. I chose the Victorian Shoulderette by Sivia Harding. It's small, delicate and purdy. I also thought that the colors would transition nicely with the pattern.



I love it when I'm right.





The specs:

I used almost all of the 300 yards of yarn, but I also modified the pattern and threw in two extra repeats. I hate having leftover handspun. I used US 7 needles. The bind-off was fun- after the lace section, you rotate the shawl on its side, and then do short rows to make the border. A little time consuming, but I like the effect.

Totally unrelated, but I can't keep this to myself any longer.



This. This is the guy who lives next door. He's always out on the stoop, smoking a cigarette wearing nothing but a ratty old robe and flip-flops. Mind you, it's cold enough for me to pile on my winter woollies when I go out even for a few minutes. He actually goes out and talks to people like that. There's just something a bit disturbing dealing with someone who is that comfortable talking to people with nothing but a thin veil of terrycloth between him and an icy wind.

Sigh. I guess instead of purchasing a super-soaker and getting my revenge, I should just continue to wear accessories that have names like "Victorian Shoulderette".

FO: Belle Starr Hat

Another handspun hat! I think after months of making sweaters, some instant gratification (and stash busting) is in order.

This started out as a batt from Butterfly Girl Designs. It was 3 oz of superwash merino, silk and a bit of sparkle called "Woodland Nymph".



Really pretty.

Ugh, I spun this up in the summer of 2008! It's been sitting in a bin ever since. I'm really trying hard to get rid of all these 100 yard skeins of handspun I have tucked away.



I did an aran weight 2-ply and got about 105 yards. Perfect amount for a lace hat.

I found the Belle Starr hat (pdf) online and dug this yarn out even though the pattern calls for a lighter DK weight. "B" is for Butterfly, and I am still plugging away at the letter "B" in my A-Z stashdown. So I cast on 10 fewer (1 lace repeat less) and ended up with a hat that fits nicely.







It's a handspun hat success. It only took a couple nights at home to make.

The Specs:

I used size 6 US needles and almost all of the 105 yards of yarn. I added an extra inch on the lace pattern as I wanted one a bit longer.