november post 4: that granny square hat

In which I share two topics dear to my heart: granny squares and the virtue of having an ongoing series photo project (ha! You thought I was going to say Zoe and Bobo, two topics also dear tomy heart. OBVIOUSLY).

The usual suspects. She put the plastic rats, shown under her arm, on his head after the hat came off.

A while back I saw this granny square hat on Pinterest, called the Rainbow Beanie, which linked to a tutorial. I love me a granny square project on the side of the knitting, it is all about playing with scraps of color. I figured why not use leftover yarns from Zoe's blanket to make her one.The tutorial itself comes down on the super chatty side of things, but it'll get you going.  Sometimes less is more, in the instructions, if you know what I mean. The hat itself is a keeper- and gets pulled out of the  basket by the front door with some regularity.  Year round, whether she needs a hat or not (I am sure many would agree with her, that you always need a hat).  I am tempted to make a less Grateful Dead-ish one for myself, like Fiorella by Courtney Kelley. Though I suspect it'll still have that hippiechick look on me.(Even worse, aging stuck in time hippiechick. Not a pretty category).

This photo was  in my Instagram feed (I am @galezucker on Instagram), it's part of a series I started 18 months ago  #dailyzoe   Zoe, the easiest kid on earth has one thing she is particular about. It began as soon as she could point and grunt. She likes to put together her own clothing. She has opinions.  Since I care not at all what people think of her outfits, and she's been dressing herself since she 2, this works out well for us all.

It's more than a little overindulgent, I get that. But just as I always have a granny square project going on, I like to have a little photo series underway, something that I can keep adding to, that can be a signature of sorts, and a little bit of a challenge, trying to keep it from getting too repeititve . It's all shot on my phone cam,so it's short and sweet and easy to upload to Instagram and FB.It's a creative doodle, who doesn't love a creative doodle? You can see more at #dailyzoe  on Instagram.

in which

My most reluctant model shows you the most whack gift to leave my hands in a while. My nephew requested  "one of those hats  with earflaps long enough for hand  pockets".
 
So I made one.  Dave truly hates to model, especially something as unsubtle as this.
 
Except it actually turned out kind of cool.  Plus, I said Bobo could be in the photos. Because, you know, nothing enhances an improvised crocheted earflap hat with recycled sweater pockets more than an American Bulldog.
 
I am particularly pleased with the pockets. They're the cuffs of an old felted sweater, cut open and upside down. The whole shebang is crocheted around with some Cascade Eco. It pulled it all together.* 
I started with the Vida Chullo pattern, sorta, kinda, and then winged it from there.** The yarns are Cascade Eco Wool in a few colors (the light turquoise main color, and the dark red, and the brown outline. There's also some nice gray and some purple alpaca , brown Valley Yarn Berkshire, and other odds & ends.It gives Dave a kind of old surfer hippy look. Which is pretty much his style anyway, minus the surfing, minus the old (don't let the white  beard fool you).  It's really comfy. The pockets will fit my tall nephew just right. The usual 18-22 year olds who can be found here weekends actually approved. Huh. Who woulda thought? Had to show  those pockets again. I'm dying to use more of that felted sweater and make myself some mittens with the same edging.

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* Yes, that is a  The Big Lebowski reference. Tell me the Dude wouldn't wear this hat thingy?
** I crocheted because it goes super fast, and I figured I'd be doing lots of ripping back. Which is so much easier in crochet than in knitting.  My crochet skills, though, are kind of naive.

PS. I tried to do this as a 15 minute blog burst. Ha! Not even close. It takes me that long to decide which photos to use, and another 15 to clean up my spelling & grammar mistakes.

some good things

I am posting from  Little Rock, Arkansas  where I'm a guest of the Arkansas Literary Festival. I've had the privilege of being in all kinds interesting, unusual, challenging, quirky and beautiful places for my work but this? This is different. I'm not reporting on it with my camera, I am actually IN it. I am not yet having those dreams where I get up to talk and realize I forgot to put on pants and instead  am naked yet covered with yarnbombing....but yeah, kind of like that. So when words fail, I'll show instead, what else has been making me happy this week.

 

 Borscht. Cold beet soup. For lunch, with chopped hard boiled egg, boiled potato, fresh green onion , a little plain yogurt and a good shake of pepper. It tastes like Spring.

The most wonderful new knitting book, Wear with All. Yes, that is my name smack dab on the cover, so take this as a biased opinion.  I was working on this in Minneapolis in November. So far you can get it in Minnesota at. the Yarnery, and Unicorn will be distributing it later this month, so tell your LYS to hop on it. You WILL want to own it. 

My Flying Home shawl in the last stage of cast off. It was soaked, blocked, and I wove the ends in on the plane.  I am planning to make sure it gets used as a practice piece when I'm teaching at Hank of Yarn this evening and at Yarn Mart on Sunday-- hehe lazy way to get some project photos to share, let the students do the work, right? 

Bobo, who is now officially heartworm free.

So, what's making you happy this week?

in which we revisit the big ass granny square

It's wip it wednesday,  crochet edition. Remember my bigass granny square from last winter,  put aside when working on it's enormous woolly/alpaca self was suffocating?

 

It's almost done. I stalled on the edging.  Did I want a kind of fancier crochet stitch for the final round? Shells ? Fringe? Corkscrews? A ruffle maybe? What about colors? Too light will get dirty and frame it too much. Too dark will be too dark.  Overthink much? 

 

When I spread it out on the old picnic table, I'd forgotten it's Bobo's perch for Keeping The Yard Squirrel Free. He was on it in a split second, scanning the treetops.

 

  I decided this didn't need anything fancier than a round of double crochet in every stitch followed by a round of single crochet, same way. For colors, I went to my fallback position of local colors.

 

The orangey/rust round was almost done when I noticed I'd done the first two sides in double crochet, then absent mindedly continued 1.5 more sides in single crochet. Glad crochet unzips out fast. 

 

I don't mind this not being done yet, it's just plain old fun & so quickly gratifying . And it's already been put to work for warmth. When camping up at Fiber College, I woke up the first night FREEZING. I didn't have warm enough bedding in my tent.  I did have an almost finished BigAss Granny Square. Slept with it on me, nice and toasty, crochet hook and all for the following 2 nights. 

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You can find more wip wednesdays over on this blog.  Oooh, I almost forgot. Need an idea for some wips, yerself?

LOVE Anna Kuo Lukito's new design, Anacortes (Ravelry) or from her site, Crafty Diversions.