Hope’s Hat pattern is now up for sale!

More information about the pattern:

The name: it’s called Hope’s Hat because while you are making it you are hoping dearly that it’ll end up being a hat! The hat is made sideways in rows and is seamed up with slip stitches – it is really only at the seaming up part that the hat shape is readily apparent.

Stitches used: chain (ch), single crochet (sc), single crochet two together decrease (sc2tog), slip stitch (slst).

Size: this pattern is one-size-fits-most. It is a very stretchy fabric, and thus will fit most adult head sizes. To be absolutely sure you don’t need to alter the pattern for your head size, make a gauge swatch.

Layout: the first page of the pdf contains the pattern written in words, and the subsequent pages contain a picture tutorial to help with seaming. This way, if you decide to print out the pattern, you can choose to only print the pattern and not the tutorial if you wish.

If you’re a member of Ravelry, you can find this and all of my other patterns in my Ravelry Shop.

If you’re not a member of Ravelry, you can find my patterns for sale in my Shop, or to buy this pattern specifically, click here: buy now

The Hope’s Hat pattern costs $3 USD, but wait! As a thank you for being such supportive readers, starting today and running until Canada Day (July 1, 2012, 11:59pm Eastern time) you can save 25% by entering this coupon code: MyReadersAreAwesome

I did find it slightly easier to work with when crocheting than with knitting, though, so there’s a plus!

Here’s how to do it with Red Heart Sashay yarn using a 6mm hook (it’s pretty much the same method for all the yarns of this type… you just need to figure out where to put the hook)

First you need to spread the yarn out – you’ll see that it’s a net. There’s an edge that has some sparkle to it, that’s the bottom edge. You will be crocheting with the top edge only.

Along the top edge there is what people call “train tracks” – a series of holes that alternate between big and small.

We will be concerning ourselves only with the large holes. Ignore the small ones.

You don’t need a slip knot to start with this yarn, you just insert your hook and off you go. Now, when I start, I fold the end over a bit and work into both layers for about an inch or so. It’s not shown in this picture because, frankly, I took that picture and you couldn’t see what was going on. :)

To get the ruffle effect, you simply skip a large hole and go into the next:

That’s it. Every time your pattern has you “yarn over”, you skip a large hole and insert the hook into the next large hole.

Start with a base chain that is approximately the length of the scarf you want to make (up to 6′ long is a safe length for one ball)

Here’s what it looks like when you pull that second “large hole” loop through the first:

(chain made)

Here I am, grabbing the next spot, two large holes away:

When you have the length you want, turn and sc in each chain. Now, the chain is hard to see, both in this picture and in real life:

But do your best – only work into one loop of the chain. It’s too much of a pain to work it any other way, in my experience.

When you’ve sc across, turn and slip stitch back down again. And you’re done! Finish off by cutting the yarn and pulling the *whole* thing through the loop on your hook. Pull it snug, and then trim the end if you find it’s sticking out too much. The end should basically hide itself in the ruffles.

And here is the finished scarf!

You’ll find it under “Granny” at the top of this page, click here: http://fantasticmio.com/granny

I still haven’t figured out how to enable comments on the pattern pages, so feel free to leave them here instead. Especially let me know if you decide to try this pattern!

I’ve been silent because of a combination of “working on presents for people who read the blog” and “working on getting a pattern published”.

I’ve been over-thinking about this for about a month now, and I’ve finally made a decision! I’m off work because of the G20 Summit being hosted in Toronto this weekend, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to post the pattern for the Oddly Linked Blanket.

If you’re on Ravelry, you’ll find the pattern here: Oddly Linked Blanket.

If you’re not on Ravelry, you should still be able to buy it by clicking on the button below to be taken directly to the PayPal page:

You would be paying $2.00 USD for the pattern for the blanket. I’d say it’s an easy-intermediate level blanket, with one tricky part that is clearly (I hope!) explained using both text and lots of pictures.

Once you get the hang of the special stitch, the blanket works up quickly! Use any smooth, solid coloured yarn with an appropriate hook for best results. I think a variegated yarn would work well, but one with long runs of colours would work best.

One last note: I know that this pattern looks like it might have a lot of ends to weave in, but it has exactly as many as you’d expect with that many colour changes; so 2 ends per stripe of colour.

And here is the pattern:

Work in rows, leave a long starting tail
ch6
R1: sc in second chain from hook, hdc, dc, htc, tc. ch4 (counts as a tc) turn
R2: htc, dc, hdc, sc, ch1, turn
Repeat these two rows until you have 15 rows.
Use the starting tail to sew the bottom of the first row to the top of the last row. Weave in end.

Working in the round, make 4 sc around the tc stitches around the edge. Join to first sc. Weave in end.

(As always, please let me know if you try this pattern, and if you come across any errors!)

Mississauga is usually out there somewhere…

… and there’s supposed to be a lake this way:

And I hate snow (boy, do I ever live in the wrong place!), but it’s ok, because my pop will be cozy:

See?

I’ve posted bottle cozies before, but there’s a difference this time: there’s a real pattern!

Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Cotton
Hook: 5mm
Size: fits a 710ml Diet Coke bottle

ch3 (counts as a dc)
R1: 11dc into first ch, join (12 dc)
R2: ch3 (counts as dc), dc into same stitch, 2dc in each following stitch, join (24 dc)
R3: ch1, sc in same stitch, sc in next 2 stitches, 2sc in next stitch. *sc in next 3 stitches, 2sc in next stitch* 5 times, join (30 sc)
R4: ch3 (counts as a dc), sc in next stitch, *dc in next stitch, sc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)
R5: ch1, sc in same stitch, dc in next stitch, *sc in next stitch, dc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)

Repeat R4-R5 as many times as needed to reach desired length. (I did 23 rounds on the tan cozy, and 21 on the pink. The difference is for no other reason than they looked the same size on the subway… Yeah, I dunno… but they both fit the bottle nicely.)

As always, if you try this pattern and find an error, please let me know!

Black side out:

Rainbow side out:

Level of difficulty: if you already know how to do crochet-on-the-double, this is really really easy. If you don’t, but you are comfortable with the Tunisian Simple Stitch, then you’ll find this pattern somewhat easy once you get going on it. If you don’t know either of those techniques, I recommend learning them on something easier (perhaps a scarf?) before attempting this. ^_^

Yarn: Bernat Satin, uses the equivalent of 1 ball for each side of hat; for mine I used 1 ball of black and small amounts of 8 colours.

Hook: 6mm double-ended hook

This pattern is for crochet-on-the-double, using the Tunisian Simple Stitch. Each row has two parts, A and B, in A you lift loops onto the hook, in B you [b]turn[/b] and work them off

MC = main colour
CC = contrasting colour

Pattern:
ch 50 in MC

Row 1A – lift up one loop in 2nd ch from hook, and in each subsequent ch (50 loops on hook, including starting loop)
Row 1B – turn, pull a loop of CC through first loop of MC. *pull a loop of CC through two loops* repeat until 1 loop of CC remains on hook.

Row 2A – loop on hook counts as first loop, insert hook from right to left through vertical bar of the second stitch from the hook on the previous row, pull up a loop of CC. Do this for every subsequent stitch (50 loops on hook)

Row 2B – turn, pull a loop of MC through the first loop on hook. *pull a loop of MC through two loops* repeat until 1 loop of MC remains.

Row 3A – pull up a loop in the second vertical bar from the hook, and continue to pull up loops until there are 2 vertical bars left (48 loops on hook)

Row 3B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 4A – work loops on in CC (48 loops on hook)

Row 4B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 5A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (46 loops on hook)

Row 5B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 6A – work loops on in CC (46 loops on hook)

Row 6B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 7A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (44 loops on hook)

Row 7B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 8A – work loops on in CC (46 loops on hook)

Row 8B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 9A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (42 loops on hook)

Row 9B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 10A – work loops on in CC (42 loops on hook)

Row 10B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 11A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (40 loops on hook)

Row 11B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 12A – work loops on in CC (40 loops on hook)

Row 12B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 13A – work loops on in MC, 40 loops from previous row, plus the 2 missed vertical bars from each previous row (50 loops on hook)

Row 13B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 14A – work loops on in CC (50 loops on hook)

Row 14B – turn, work loops off in MC

One wedge made!

Repeat from 3A to 14B until you have 8 wedges

To finish, slip stitch to bind off both colours by *inserting the hook through the next vertical bar, pull a loop through it and the loop on the hook* until you reach the end. Do the MC first, then the CC. Leave LONG tails.

Use the CC tail to sew the last row made to the first row (try to join it with the CC of the first row if you can). Use the MC tail to weave in and out of the stitches at the top of the hat, pull tightly like a drawstring until the hole at the top is closed. Secure with a knot, then use the rest of that tail to sew the seam down on the MC side of the hat.

Weave in all ends.

To alter this pattern to fit better, or use a different yarn, etc. :

Make a swatch (I recommend making a scarf-sized swatch ;)) to determine how many stitches and rows you get per inch/cm. Measure your head, and do some math. ^_^

You can easily start with fewer stitches to make a shorter hat, do more “stop two stitches short of the end” rows to make the rounded-top part bigger, and change the number of wedges you do to fit a smaller or larger circumference.

To easily keep track while making this hat, I made sure that my “miss the last two stitches” rows always happened with the black yarn (MC in the pattern), and the CC rows were just repeating its previous row. It’ll make sense when you’re doing it. ^_^

If you need any help with this pattern, feel free to ask! If you spot any errors, let me know so that I can fix them. ^_^

And what do you think of the new blog layout? I’m still tinkering with it; let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work!

Well, it started with these:

which I figure will end up being a small blanket, 4 squares by 5 squares, maybe. Each square is roughly 8 inches.

Then I made these (because who finishes a project before going on to the next one anymore?) :

And some matching solids:

Which is actually the same colour (and dye lot!) as the dark green in the previous picture. Cameras are weird sometimes, aren’t they?

The current plan is to arrange the green ones 5×7 like this:

Where any empty spaces will be filled by solid dark green motifs.

Once I see it all laid out, I’m going to see if all of that dark green needs to be separated with some light green borders, or something. We’ll see!

Here are all of the squares arranged by doneness:

Top and bottom right, and bottom middle: finished
Top left (two piles) : need the ends woven in
Bottom left: ran out of yarn while making (and how annoying is THAT?)

Finally, here is the pattern I used!

Note: use an appropriate method to reach the right stitch height for each round. I used the no-turning-chain-dc on the dc rounds, and ch2 for hdc, and ch1 for sc. I didn’t note any of this in the pattern because it’s easier to memorize it this way. ^_^

Start with magic loop, or ch1 no-turning-chain-dc, or whatever your preferred method.

Rnd 1: 12 dc
Rnd 2: 2dc in each dc from previous round (24 dc)
Rnd 3: *2dc in one st, 1dc in next st* 12 times (36 dc)
Rnd 4: *1dc, 2dc in next st, 1dc in next st* 12 times (48 dc)
Rnd 5: *1dc, 1dc, 1dc, 1dc, 2dc in next st* 12 times (60 dc)
Change colours here if you want.
Rnd 6: *1sc in each of 10 sts, 1hdc in next 2 sts, 5dc in next st, 1 hdc in next 2 sts* 4 times (76 sts)
Rnd 7: *1hdc in each sc of previous rnd (10hdc), 1dc in each of next 4 sts, 5dc in next st, 1dc in each of next 4 sts* 4 times (92 sts)
Rnd 8: 1dc in each st, 5dc in the middle stitch of the 5dc on previous round. (108 sts)

To make it bigger, repeat Rnd 8 as many times as you want. It will add 16 sts to your count each time. If you want a bigger circle in the centre, well, you’re going to have to finesse the pattern a bit.

If any of you try this, want to let me know if there are any errors in the pattern? Thanks!