What's New, Pussyhat?

Woh woh woooh! My daughter introduced me to this,  and I've been a maniac ever since. On the first day of the new presidential administration, a great mass of women will march on Washington to give notice that we are here, we are aware, we are watching, and we will resist any attempt to diminish the rights we have now and any attempt to curb efforts to set us back on our road to establishing women's rights and all human rights.

I had heard about the march, and was wistful that it was so far out of the question for me to go and participate. The cost of transportation and housing could be so much better deployed supporting the organizations we are going to need to see us through the next four years.

And then came the news of the Pussyhat Project. The nation's makers making pink pussy-eared hats for as many marchers as possible. I loved it. Just because the march has a serious purpose doesn't mean there can't be fun and joy. In the words of marchers 100 years ago--bread and roses. And pussies to take back the term the grabber-in-chief used to brag about sexual assault, and also reclaim the definition of pussies as weak and wimpy. We are anything but!

I have for a long time had a problem with the color pink. First because it has become a color code for that which is feminine or reserved for females and therefore anathema to males. I absolutely hate that pepto-bismol pink that's used to code the "girls' " toys, girls' clothes, bikes, you name it. And then the pink ribbons came along, and corporations tried to boost sales by packaging their goods in pink and donating a pittance to breast cancer research, somehow trying to convince the public that you can cure cancer by buying yogurt.

But I'm fine with this use of pink. It's not for the enhancement of any corporate person's bottom line. It's not for marking out girl-cooties so as not to infect the y chromosome. It's just--yeah, we're female; deal with it.

Trouble was, with my longime attitude to pink, when I entered the stashcave to seek materials, almost none were to be found. Just a few balls of pale pink wool fingering left from making a brain hat. I made a start, using it double to get worsted weight. And then I realized that there was a part of the stash I could use--the various knit-in threads I've accumulated.  So in went the gold thread and what came out was the first pussyhat:

It will subtly twinkle in the sunlight.

After a trip to the store and another stash dive, I was ready to start production in earnest. Next came the glamourpuss, magenta acrylic with a topping of silver sequins:

With each hat, I am refining the pattern to suit my yarn and gauge. I have enough trimmings to make all of my hats uniquely endowed with extra flash.  Pale pink and sequins yielded this beauty:

And Number Four was back to the magenta with yet a different sequin treatment:

I now have switched to knitting in the round, with a 3 1/2" rib and an 8" overall length. I am a little apologetic about using the acrylic yarn, but it does have a nice, not "plastic-y" feel, and anything else would be financially unfeasible in the quantity required. The same amount of love goes into the making as if they were made of handspun angels' bellybutton lint.  Last of the pale pink wool with a band of the last of the silver sequins:

I will be posting each hat on Instagram as I finish it. (button in the sidebar) Go take a look at the wonderful variety of hats folks are making and revel in the creativity and determination being unleashed. And maybe pick up your needles and knit a hat or two yourself!

Fiber & Friends #1

In spite of my good intentions, I just couldn't manage to blog during the Net Loft Fiber & Friends event in Cordova AK. It was all I could manage while attending daylong classes to poop out a few Instagrams; hope you enjoyed them. But I do want to tell  you about it all, so here goes in a post-happening series of posts.

Because the ferry schedule is so awkward, (so awkward, indeed, that the web site is hopelessly out of date and you'd better phone them if you're serious about going there) I had to arrive a day ahead of the start. This turned out to be a useful opportunity to scope out the town and environs. And at the Chinese restaurant just before I crossed the street to sign in, this was my fortune cookie:

The first Saturday and Sunday: a two-day workshop about hat design. Whaat? Two days to figure out how to knit a topper? Well, yes, if your teacher is the brilliant Bonne Marie Burns.

She used the humble knit beanie to give us insight into the design process of all knit garments. This means some serious and diligent swatching (stitch and row), and serious thought about sizing, materials, construction, and an historical detour into the development of the knit hat from the 1400s.

She taught us how the math of the top decreases rules the process, and how the designer can fiddle, fudge, frog, and maybe some other f-words, too, to make inspiration mesh with stitch counts and create a realistic plan for a real product.

We learned about using tear sheets for inspiration, and wrote our own design concept statements, followed by the hard graft of the actual plan for the design.

 

We measured heads, swatched swatches, swatched potential stitch patterns, tried out this 'n' that, so that by the end of the two days, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do, and a definite plan for it,  but had not cast on a serious stitch yet. Eventually I did cast on, and in fits and starts and odd moments managed to make most of what I call the rough draft version of my hat.

The Big Idea was to make a 4-panel hat featuring a scallop shell texture motif in each one. The shell was based on one in an Alice Starmore sweater, Cape Cod by name. Executed in a different gauge and fiber, however, it was a miserable squashed caricature of a shell, so needed a good bit of revising and rescaling. Likewise, the panel dividers went through several iterations, as did the crown decrease method. I can now say with confident experience that as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the pattern is in the knitting. You just don't know what it will look like till you know what it looks like. 

Here's the finished product, with rough draft huddled below.

 3/4 view:

 And the top. Just love that p2tog "button" as the center finish:

I have to say I'm really proud and pleased with myself, and massively grateful to Bonne Marie for all she taught us.

Something Fishy

Summertime in Alaska, and the thoughts of the citizenry turn to fish. Look here what's turned up in my FO net---a school of fish!

A fishing family of my acquaintance is expecting a new minnow, and I've long wondered if an adult hat pattern could be adapted to make a baby cocoon, specifically that cute Knitty fish hat that looks like it's eating your head.  What if it could eat a whole baby? Would they name him/her Jonah?

Anyway, here it is:

Not a real baby. It's a stunt double.

The opening is the regular hat size. That turned out to be the diameter of various baby cocoon patterns that I checked out. Then I just extended the body length of the hat and finished with the prescribed taper and tail, adding a little extra to the fins to keep it in better proportion. Now, I know this is a little weird-looking to normal people, but, trust me, Alaska fisherpeople are going to think it's the height of cool hilarity to stuff their darling in a big wooly fish maw to snuggle down for a nap.

But wait, there's more.
The minnow has siblings that we can't leave out. Besides, I've got plenty more yarn!

There's a pink salmon hat for toddler big sister:

Made with a scaled-down version of the original Knitty hat. Thanks so much Emma Lindberg for doing all the hard work!

And we haven't forgotten Big Brother, who looked to be about the age of the kids in the Knitty pattern. For him, it's the original pattern size. He was most emphatic that his hat should also copy the x-ed out dead fish eyes, so here it is, dead fish on yer head.

Details of yarn, etc are on my Ravelry project pages.

Caution: the end of this blog post will install a nasty earworm if you dare to click on the video.  You have been warned.

 

Yum!

Small Incident in a Small Place in a Small World

Every once in a while I get amazed beyond measure by how the internet can connect us, and we can learn about happenings in faraway places. I'm not talking about silly memes that make cats or someone's mistake unforgettable for 15 minutes.  I'm talking about noticing something, picking up a lose thread, and following it around the web to make a full enhanced story.

Perusing the British newspaper, The Independent, I came upon a story about a small but meaningful crime on the tiny Scottish island of Canna. It's here. Go ahead, click on it. The loose thread that caught my eye was the mention of 6 knitted hats. Knitted hats? Canna knitted hats? What's a Canna knitted hat? I had to know more.

The Independent article led me to the Guardian article, which had more beautiful pictures of Canna and more links. The first was the the Aberdeen Press and Journal, which delighted me no end, because I used to be a citizen of Aberdeen and remember the paper fondly. One thing I loved about the more local story was the choice of a photo that showed a large number of Canna-ans posed in front of the shop in presumably happier times. The volunteers that run it? Nearly half the island's population. But nobody was wearing a hat. I still was looking for the hats.

Surely there was a picture somewhere of the hats. Publishing one would be a great way to find the jerk(s) that stole them. And anyway, I still wanted to know if this was a special kind of hat. Googling Canna hat only got me to cannabis-themed hats. But the Facebook link in the Guardian article got me this and this. Canna hats! Turns out they are ribbed bobble hats that just happen to be made by a Canna knitter.

But what a knitter! By searching for the name visible on one of the tags, I found the web site of Canna Creations, where some of Julie Scot's work is there for all to see. So Canna hats are made on Canna by a Canna knitter with local wool she's dyed herself! Wow! And you can find out all this at your desk in about half an hour with your browser.

If I were a Facebooker, I would "like" the Canna shop page and spread the word to all my knitter friends in the hope that the pictures of the Canna hats would become a meme that eventually led to the capture and punishment of the thieves who wrecked such a charming and useful facility in a beautiful remote place.

And now, if we're ever on our way to visit Canna, we know to contact Julie Scot and ask to inspect her wares firsthand.  Here's a half-hour charming '70s-'80s documentary on the island:

And if you've less time, here's a 10-minute slideshow some hikers made of the island:

Brainz

Yet another Hat for Huts topper ready to go:

 

The Brain Hat, in lovely soft merino. Well, brains are supposed to be soft, aren't they?  And washable? You don't want your brain to shrink or felt in the brainwash, of course!

Thus we have the perfect accessory for the Zombie Apocalypse--when being chased, you whip off your knitted brains, fling them at the pursuing zombies, and make your escape. And a zombie can keep its head warm:

 

Mountain Topper

Another hat done for the Hats for Huts auction!

It's Deborah Tomasello's Snow-Capped Mountains, done in the prescribed yarn (Knit Picks Palette) but in shades I had on hand, not the exact prescribed ones. Still, turned out pretty well, don't you think? Braided tail on the top is my own added whimsey.

Not Mad, Just a Slightly Eccectric Hatter

Lately it's been all hats all the time around here. I've got a friend who needs some hats, and the Hats for Huts deadline is coming up. Lessee what we've got so far:

 

A beret made of yak yarn, a kit from GotYarn.com. Details here. This is a real beauty; the pattern was easy to understand and follow; the amount of yarn was just enough. And oh my goodness--when you wash and block the hat the yarn does indeed bloom to a fuzzy softness that would make little baby kittens feel like sandpaper! Yak is one of those fibers that is really extra warm for its weight. (Well, it would have to be, wouldn't it, to keep yaks warm on the Tibetan plateau.) Perfect for a sophisticated Alaskan head.

Next, we have the 100% Alaskan hat:

Details here. Made entirely of Alaska-sourced wool, dyed with entirely Alaskan snow, and topped with "8 stars of gold". Not visible is the fact that it's double around the sides, giving extra warmth and wind protection for Alaska ears. This one is destined for the Hats for Huts auction.

What else do we have in the Slightly Eccentric But Not Mad Hatter's shop? A couple more in process. The Brain Hat is ready for the application of the cortex to the cap. Actually, it looks at this stage more like a pile of innards. Has the brain spilled its guts? Or maybe it's a confused and extremely clumsy octopus?

All that i-cord has to be pinned on and then attached in some kind of a brain-like fashion. A bit daunting, to be honest. (After all this knitting, will I really be able to make it look like a brain?) Fun words gleaned from perusing lots of brain diagrams--the ridges are called gyri; the valleys between are suculi. I'm donating my brain not to Science, but to Hats for Huts.

And here we have most of a Mountain Hat. No prize for guessing it's also a Hat for Huts.

Pattern is one of Deborah Tomasello's multi-color masterpieces, Snow-Capped Mountains. It's a somewhat loose interpretation, as I had the prescribed yarn, but not in the exact shades. And no grey until I found some late in the game and duplicate-stitched it in. Washing and blocking will tell the final tale.

The Knit Goes On

My hat-a-thon for the Mountain Huts hat sale is over, and it's on to bigger things. You still can go to the silent auction if you're reading this on or before May 10, 2013. Loussac Library in Anchorage, 6-7 pm is the hat auction before the big meeting and slide show.

But planning and making the hats was so much fun, I'm already plotting what I could do for next year. A fish hat? A mountain hat? Breast hat? Another, even crazier mohawk? The possibilities are very exciting!

Meanwhile, the knit goes on. Sixareen Cape is slowly growing. It's fair isle; it's fine gauge; it's going to take a while.

So I started another project, a Kaffe Fassett-designed striped sweater. Plain stockinette no-brainer stitching, portable with only 2 balls to carry around at a time, peasy, right?

I loved the colors the minute that photo slammed into my eyes. And of course it would--Mr. F has a unique way with color, though usually his designs are crazy complicated with a zillion intarsia bobbins. But this is just stripes of alternating varigated yarns (color varigations also designed by Fassett, too, naturally). The whole thing was sold as a kit, which made it a much better deal than buying pattern and yarn separately. What's not to like?

The pattern is what not to like. I had already decided on a different neck than the cowl from the get-go. It looks fetching on the model, but she's probably 6'3", and I'll bet she's a lot neater than most people when she eats soup.  Fortunately,  I have been tricked by patterns before and learned from the experience(s). So I read the whole thing through, contemplating each instruction carefully. Good thing. Right off the bat there was the overall stripe prescription. The picture is a 4x4 stripe, that is, 4 red, 4 dark. The pattern says 4 red, 2 dark. Whaat?? I scrutinized the picture with a magnifying glass. Definitely 4x4. Scrutinized the bag of kit yarn. Exactly half and half. So if I unquestioningly followed the pattern, I would have a serious yarn deficit about halfway through.

At this point, the pattern is a mere suggestion. I've already got what I wanted from the kit--beautiful stripe effect in a stunning color combination. So--4" bottom ribbed welt? Too wide. 2 1/2" is much better. Using both yarns together to knit the selvedge stitch? A recipe for a fat column of stitches that won't make a good seam--forget it. 29" total length? I don't think so. (See 6'3" model remark above). And I've got plenty of time to contemplate the actual neckline. For sure it won't be a cowl!

Full Retreat

I'm just back from another wonderful weekend knitting retreat with my knitting group at an Undisclosed Location in the Alaska wilderness. For the most part, What Happens at Knitting Retreat Stays at Knitting Retreat, but I think it's ok if I show you one thing:

A display of Hats for Huts created or donated by/to our group for the auction. How could you possibly acquire for your very own one of these exquisite chapeaux, you ask? Come to the group's annual meeting. Bid often and fiercely! You could get yourself a Sixareen Kep or an Alaska Punk hat. Or one of many, many more amazing, delightful, and cosy hats. But especially the Sixareen or the Punk or the Fornicating Moose. I'm just sayin'.  Hey, it's my blog and I can shill if I want to.

Now a lot of people might think that a bunch of women holed up for a weekend in a remote cabin just use knitting as an excuse to eat great food, talk all day long, laugh their tails off, and drink the odd glass of wine. Or Screech. (Check the link. That's Screech, the knitter's rum, not screech, the high pitched noise.) But I'm here to tell you that I knitted so much I got blisters! Three of them, as a matter of fact. And the ever-resourceful Ravelry has an answer for the problem. A knitted answer, of course. The Finger Protector--take a look. I'm knittin' me a fistful of those bad boys. In cashmere. My hard-working fingers deserve nothing less--and so do yours!

Eight Stars of Gold on a Hat of Blue...

Alaska Punk, may it be to you...

The third hat for the Hats for Huts auction. An Alaska Flag style hat based on the Pretty in Punk book mohawks. Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride Bulky yarn, 'cuz it's the feltin'-est. Colors M-79 Blue Boy and VM-240 Prairie Goldenrod, if you're interested. I've made this pattern a couple of times, and the LP works out just perfectly. Shrinks the right amount, and the mohawk fringe stands up beautifully. When I made a previous one of these, I embroidered the stars on. This time I bought some plastic ones and fabric-glued them on. The Sparkle looks great in the sunlight!

And the model? Willa Cather at the library. Chosen for the assignment because her domelike head was perfect for the shape of the hat.

HAT, Two, Three, Four.......

'Ten-SHUN! (oooo, knitting pun! 'tenshun, tension, geddit?)  Hats for the Alaska Mountain Hut auction are on the march! Here is my second one:

A Sixareen Kep, (almost) as designed by Kate Davies, and made in the specified yarn, Shetland Heritage. It uses all the current colors of this new yarn, made of 100% Shetland fiber, and spun in the worsted manner instead of the modern woolen, then dyed in traditional colors to recreate the material of historic knitted items in the Shetland Islands.

To explain the "almost" above: In the fair isle section, 3 rows too late, I discovered that I omitted a change from the brown to burgundy. Rather than rip that far back, I just carried on, repeating the error in the top half of the pattern in order to stay symmetrical. To me, this seems to look ok and not a big deal. 2 other changes were intentional. The lozenges at top and bottom of the fair isle were one stitch off of symmetry with the center design. I pondered and pondered the situation, and could see no purpose, aesthetic or structural, served by this offset, so I moved it over one. And then to balance my color blooper, I made the i-cord bindoff at the bottom in burgundy. (It was supposed to be brown.) All in all, I think it looks very much like the designer's original intention, but I hope Ms. Davies can find it in her heart to forgive me if it's not.

I learned some things in making my kep--never done Turkish Cast on before, but I really like it. It made it very easy to extend the lining when it proved too short, and seems like it would be good to use with toe-up socks, shawls, and in other situations. I had used attached i-cord before (see Viola), but never for the edge of a hat. Works great!

Best of all, making the hat was a sort of exaggerated swatch for what I really want to make for myself, a Sixareen Cape. And I not only have got gauge (or 'ten-SHUN!), but will be more wide awake with color changes.

But before I do that, there's at least one more hat to make for the auction:

Can you guess what it is?

P.S. What's a sixareen? Look it up and see one in action.

Effing Moose Hut Hat

Herewith on its blocking ball, a hat created for The Hats for Huts auction, a silent auction to take place in May, a fundraiser for Alaska Mountain and Wilderness Huts Association. Check them out--their ultimate goal is a string of huts around Alaska that are a wee bit posher than your average public use cabin. They've started with Manitoba Cabin, and if you want to make a personal acquaintance with an Alaska Mountain Hut while knitting a Hat for Huts, there will be a knitting and spinning weekend at Manitoba Cabin April 26-28, 2013. If you're interested, leave a comment, and we'll connect you with the organizer.

Meanwhile, back at the hat:

It's one of the many, many interpretations of the Fornicating Deer Chart altered to look a bit moose-ier than the original caribou (thicker antlers on the male, none on the female) and, what the heck, some beaded snowflakes/stars in the sky. Dale Hielo yarn with Cashmerino lining band. Instructions said provisional cast on, make the hat, rip out the cast on and make the inner band. Nuts to that. I reverse engineered it to start with the band, then keep going, turn the purl edge and do the hat. Why knit and rip if you don't have to? Works out fine.

11 O is Number 206!

Here it is at long last--the last square of Viola has been knitted:

Row 11, column O, seven colors. Now a serious amount of blocking and sewing begins.

Meanwhile, the portable knitting bag seems to be diligently hatching hats.

A Chroma and Capretta ponytail hat and a slightly beaded Undergrowth. Shhh! they're for Christmas!

Ptarmigan Made a Peacock

Proud as a Peacock is finished, plenty of time to git 'er done while waiting for what I swear is the last resupply of yarn for greedy Viola.

Here it is in all its beady glory:

Yarn is (as you might say of your kitty cat) a rescue from a kit project that I finally decided was too fiddly to actually make. It would have involved a terrible rats' nest of bobbins and colors difficult to discriminate in dim winter light. The yarn was Knit Picks Palette, background color Opal Heather as per pattern, but the contrast colors are Blue Note Heather, Pool, Bluebell, and Tidepool Heather. There's not as much contrast between the Tidepool and Opal as with the original green, which led me to make some changes from the pattern's top:

I repeated the sequence of the blue contrasts and added beads instead of a plain stitch for the "eyes" of the feather shape. I like the hat and this interpretation of it just fine. The model, by the way, is Louisa May Alcott at the library.

What's up with Viola? I couldn't finish the last few squares without yet another resupply of 3 more colors of yarn. It's just a few ridges missing for each color, and I did consider faking it with substitutions of near-neighbor colors. I don't even think it's the fault of the pattern's yarn estimation. I suspect that if I had been less liberal with the starting and finishing tails for all those colors in all those squares, I probably could have eked it out with the original quantity. Too late now.

Don't ask me to explain why I'm such an improvisor on one project and a pattern slave on the other. It's just the way the fiber flops for me. Thank goodness There Are No Knitting Police!

Portable Peacock

Here, take a peek at the new portable project:

Proud as a Peacock hat by Deborah Tomasello.  It's lovely, absolutely lovely. The colors I'm using aren't the prescribed ones, but the palette is similar, and I have the satisfaction of using some yarns for a kit that I decided was just too fiddly to go on with. The green yarn barely shows up at all, being too close a cousin to the Opal Heather background color (the only color that matches the pattern prescription). Because of the lack of contrast, I have my own plans for the crown pattern. Let's just say that beads will be involved.

What of Viola? She continues, slowly but surely. Only a few squares left now, but wouldn't you know it--I've run out of another color! Rats! I suppose if I were a bit more somethingorother (organized? anal? methodical? thrifty?) I would have knit until I had done all the squares possible with the original yarn quantity, and then ordered all the additional balls needed at once. Lucky for Knit Picks, I'm not that methodical etc. Lucky for me, this is cheap Knit Picks yarn and not baby bison/virgin cashmere/angels' navel lint yarn. (Although that stuff would be pretty soft, wouldn't it?) Anyway, awaiting resupply of Hollyberry this time.

And actually, taking a look at the photo with so many squares bagged up by page awaiting blocking, actual blocking on the board by page, so many squares awaiting page completion in labeled serried rows, I don't think I'm so disorganized, after all!

Report from Knitting Group Retreat

Everything was just ducky!