Lee hat

I just finished knitting a wonderful new hat called Lee.   It's designed by Ysolda Teague and is a free pattern.  As soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to try it.  It is a cloche style hat with a lot of style. 

The construction is very unusual starting with a little I-cord in the back and spiralling out from there.  It's one of those patterns that keeps you going, to see what comes next.  I decided to add a picot edge to the hem of the brim by knitting (yo, k2tog, k1) around on the first row of the contrast color.  I also decided to tack the hem down without having the contrast color show through as suggested in the pattern. 

Also, the picture on the pattern makes the two contrast stripes look like they were done with a tuck stitch to make them pucker and fold along the front.  But there is no unusual treatment of these two row stripes in the pattern.  So, after finishing and before tacking down the hem, I decided to sew the stripe on the wrong side of the fabric to make it pucker.  This was easy enough to do by picking up the contrast color purl bumps and sewing them together.  I blocked the hat and am very pleased with how it came out.  My lovely daughter modeled the hat for me.

We have been watching the first season of The Waltons and this hat reminds me of something that Olivia Walton would have worn in the 1930's.

First Blog Post

I have officially joined the blogging world! 


I hope to share many of the creative projects that I am working on and will add tips when I can.  I love being creative.  My first choice for fullfilling that creative need is knitting, closely followed by polymer clay. 

I have been knitting since I was a child but really didn't start knitting on a regular basis until I was in my early 20s and wanted to make nice Christmas and birthday gifts for my family and friends.  When I couldn't find buttons that I like to match my handknits, I began to make buttons from polymer clay.  A few years ago I really got excited about clay and learned all that I could and try as many techniques.  I love making jewelry and buttons especially.  But I came back to knitting because it is so portable.  I usually have at least two or three knitting projects in the car at any one time so that I can knit whenever I have a couple of minutes - soccer practice and games etc.

At the moment I am working on a sweater called Shalom Cardigan.  This has been a very popular pattern on Ravelry but I didn't get sucked in until recently while looking at some of the projects that others have done with the pattern.  I decided to do the yoke with Knit Picks new yarn Chroma and the body with the brown solid Chroma yarn and I also decided to add 3/4 length sleeves.