Month: July 2018

52 hats :: 30 – pointy hat (finally caught up!)

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

I’ve loved this type of hats since I first saw them online years ago. Elf hats, leprechaun hats, gnome hats, pointy hats. Love them all. I could have downloaded a pattern to make it easy on myself, but hey, where’s the fun in that? So I just went ahead and tried to get a pointy top.
I think it worked out alright, though it didn’t end up as pointy as I envisioned. Also, it was meant as a hat for a child, but it still fits my adult-sized model. Maybe I need to cast on fewer stitches next time (did 66 stitches on 5 mm needles). So, in conclusion: loved making this, but needs some tweaking.

Also: finished this hat (number 30) on Saturday, July 28th., which was the end of week 30. Finally caught up! (also posted two hats today, since I wanted to be back on track in August).
Trying to knit one hat a week for a while now and work on other projects too. Though the thought of keeping this flow of three hats a week up and finish early still appeals to me too. Hmn. We’ll see.

linking up with Frontier Dreams’ Crafting On

52 hats :: 29 – ribbed

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So I actually think this is the best design I came up with so far. It’s interesting to look at and fun to knit, though not too hard. I think I’m going to make it again and write a pattern for it. Would you like to knit this one?

52 hats :: 27 – for bigger heads

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This hat looked much better on my head (the model has a rather small head). I wanted it to be a really slouchy hat, but I ran out of yarn. It is big enough to stuff my hair in though. Even though the colors are a bit much for me, this is one of those ‘might want to wear it’ hats.

52 hats :: 26 – deep purple

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Sometimes yarn doesn’t need a fancy pattern. Like this one.  I love the color and it’s incredibly soft. So wonderful to work with and comfortable to wear.
Too bad there wasn’t enough of this (thrift shop find) to make a sweater. But I do have enough to make another hat. I’m actually looking forward to that 😉

Posting in a weekend is not what I normally do, but I’m determined to catch up with the hat posting. Especially now that I finished hat no. 30. On Saturday, week 30. So my hat knitting can go back to one a week now and I thought it would be fun to get the hat posting to real time too.

52 hats :: 25 – simply blue

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

The only part that could be described as ‘design’ on this hat is the brim. I did a K3 P1 K1 P3 rib, to make it a little bit different. The rest of it is simple stockinette.
I found a lot of this yarn (that I also have in green and rainbow colors) at a thrift store a while back. It’s nice and thick, so it knits up pretty fast. Perfect for catching up with the hat knitting 😉

Three, random

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

1. I realized that for me it doesn’t feel like a real summer when I haven’t planted any red geraniums. So I took care of that yesterday. I can safely state these are my favorite flowers (followed closely by marigolds).

2. Summer fruits are special to me too. I used to buy (and eat) lots and lots of them when the girls were younger, so I thought it would be fun to revive that tradition and buy them for myself. My husband doesn’t eat fruit.
And I shouldn’t either. The sugars didn’t do my body any good. Back to snacking on cucumbers and tomatoes, I guess. But it was great to taste these again after almost three years of not eating fruit.

3. You didn’t think I’d left all those thrift shops I visited before finding my chair empty handed, didn’t you? Of course not!
I did show remarkable restraint though. I have a weakness for vintage plates and bowls, but I left all of them behind. I didn’t even look at the books (that’s the only way to prevent myself from buying them). But I caved for this cute little WIP knitting basket and a bigger basket to store my yarn. I also bought some yarn. At least enough for five or six hats, I think!

Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday

I'll be right here *

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

*title of this post stolen from Soulemama

Yesterday I went on an epic thrift store search.
I was in need of a better chair. The one I had was fun to look at, but I got back aches from sitting in it too long. And since we’ve stored our desks and office chairs away while we’re working on renovating and finishing that room, I do a lot of sitting in that chair in the living room.
I visited three stores in the morning, but came up with nothing. The chairs I found that didn’t make my back hurt even more were either very ugly or too big. So after lunch, I went at it again. Visited three more stores. I hesitated about a darling little chair that was labeled ‘granny’s reading chair’, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to spend a day of work on it. So off I went, to the seventh store on my list.
And there it was. The chair of my dreams.
I’ve always loved rocking chairs, but the time was never right. I had small homes and very accident prone children.  In my (overactive, I have to admit) mind could see them tumbling over and breaking their necks while playing in my chair. Not that they would be allowed to, but hey, I do understand the attraction of it.
So I bought none of the rocking chairs I passed in thrift stores in those days. When Amanda found hers (oh my, how can that be almost ten years ago already?!?)  the dream became alive again and since my children were bigger by then, I started keeping an eye out for rocking chairs. But of course, in those days I never found an affordable rocking chair. That’s how it goes.
But now? I’m in chair heaven. My back started singing when I sat down to test it in the store and it’s even better with pillows. It’s great for working on my laptop, for knitting, for reading, for talking. I love, love, love it.
I was still doubting whether or not to ship our belongings to Curaçao when we move there forever, but now I’m sure. There’s no way I’ll leave this chair behind. Nope, no matter where we’ll live, I’ll be here. In my rocking chair.

52 hats :: 23 – scrap busting

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Not very creative, just working my way through scraps (leftovers from the mystery shawl).

Thanks for sticking with me and my boring posts while I try to catch up with the 52 hat challenge. I’m still behind on both posting and knitting, so I have at least a week of these to go. But I will try to mix in some other posts too. 😉