Sunday 22 November 2015

Another Pom Pom hat and a pattern...




I'm having a ball with hats again so I may need to talk myself into doing some more Cedar River Blanket squares pretty soon.

On the home front improvements are slowly emerging. It's been a long standing problem since we merged the contents of a four bedroom house into a much smaller bungalow. I'm not sorry we chose M's house to live in but it's been a long slog trying to knock it into something suitable for four people. Just don't ask me what is in the attic!

The very last room in the house to get some attention is the master bedroom. It was quite large but problematic in the sense that the windows are also large and take up most of two walls. To cut a long story short we decided to carve it up into two rooms with a large window in each, one of which will become my very own craft room! Never mind Christmas, this is like having all my Christmas presents in one go!

Much sorting has been done in order not to fill up the new room with clutter. The wool cupboard received a major overhaul. It now contains ten clear boxes labelled as follows:

Plain DK x2
Variegated DK
Aran
Chunky
Super Chunky
Knitting needles and misc equipment
Work in progress x2
Misc Yarn

It feels amazing to have sorted it all out so thoroughly. My wool winder came in very handy for winding the messy balls into neat yarn cakes. Obviously I have come across a few treasures. The yarn above is a lovely merino wool mix which I've only got a small quantity of. It said 'hat' to me so I'm tried the htr blo version of the grey hat I did the other day. This one has dc's to narrow the top. I sewed the grey one up a bit on the big side so this time I sewed it up roughly with a bright red yarn to make sure it was a sensible size before sewing it up properly. With this amazing yarn I just had to add a Pom Pom!

I think there a few tweaks I'd like to try over the next few hats but here is how I did this one...
In UK terms:

Using a 5mm hook and DK yarn chain as many as it takes to measure 12".
(10" if you don't want a turn up brim).
Chain 2 for turning and htr in all stitches until there are five stitches left. Dc in remaining 5. Turn.
Ch 1, dc in first 5 st, then htr to end.
Carry on this way until piece measures 18-20" wide depending on head circumference required. (I found that 18" was plenty even for the biggest head in the family which was J at 23", this is because an all rib crochet fabric has plenty of stretch in it, but it will vary according to yarn used).
Starting at bottom (widest part) of hat sew up the seam and then sew a gathering stitch round the narrower part. Weave all ends in.
Add a Pom Pom for fun!

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