Hardly worth mentioning

Today I am sick. Apparently a super nasty flu has been floating around Portland. Right now, I just feel like I have a head cold, but I have been feeling increasingly worse as the day goes on... let's hope that now that I am in bed with some good tea that this is as bad as it gets and it doesn't escalate into the death-bug that so many others have had this winter.

That is why this will be a quick post to show you a little project that doesn't need much explanation (or deserve much praise).



It's a crocheted pot holder. It's made from di. Ve Fiamma which is a super bulky think-thin wool. I didn't use a pattern, just the instructions for crocheting in the round from the Stitch n' Bitch Happy Hooker book. It's felted a bit. I put it through one wash cycle which shrunk it about 15%, though most of the stitch definition is still there. Now it is slightly firmer making it more suitable for it's purpose. Here it is before felting/shrinking... Can you see the difference?



My brother has been using an old t-shirt as a pot holder/oven mitt for a while, so I gave this to him when he moved to his new apartment as a housewarming gift. He said the blue made it a sufficiently masculine pot holder to warrant a place in his kitchen, though he expressed his desire that if I make another it incorporate dinosaurs in some way. If I didn't have so many other projects on the needles right now, I might step up to the challenge.

What's on the needles Wednesday

Possibly by participating in Kerry's What's on the Needles Wednesday I will be sufficiently kicked in the butt to finish something. Therefore, this Wednesday, the project on my needles is this:



That is Ryan's blanket. Right now it's just over 4' x 4' but it needs 20" more of black before it's finished. I try to devote one hour to it a day, but some days I just can't bring myself to garter for that long.

It's based on the golden ratio rectangle. When it's finished, it will have a big red spiral surfaced crocheted onto the top.

Lotus

I have recently been expanding my hat wardrobe. I have decided that hats go with most of my casual day to day wear and are a great way to 1) stay warm and 2) cover up a bad hair day. My newest addition to my hat wardrobe is this.





It's the Lotus Hat by UptownPurl and it can be found free on her blog. It's a very simple 8 row zig-zag lace repeat that makes beautiful vine-like motifs running up the hat.

I made a few changes to the pattern as written but they were so minor and mostly based on other ravelers' suggestions. I did the 1x1 ribbing as twisted rib instead of normal. I did the ribbing for 10 rows instead of 6. I knit 4 repeats of the pattern before decreasing instead of 3 to make it come down over my ears. That's all. Not minor changes, but worth mentioning if you want your hat to look "just" like this one.



This is the hat blocking over a balloon... my new favorite way to block hats. A bag of balloons was less that $2 at Target (in the area with the birthday wrapping paper) and it's so much faster than blocking by laying flat. I just blew up a balloon to 21" circumference and put the hat on it. No having to constantly flip the hat to make sure both sides are drying, no having to rotate how the hat is laying so that it doesn't dry with a crease, AND it drys 3x as fast because the wet layers aren't sitting on top of each other keeping the moisture in.



The best part of the hat is the crown where the decreases make the vines spiral together beautifully.

I used Malabrigo Merino Worsted in colorway Black Forest. According to my yarn scale, this took 50.5 g of yarn, so just a bit over half a skein. This was leftover from my earlier Botanic hat, where I used it as the secondary color, and even after both hats I still have 33 g left. I'm thinking I will just be able to squeeze a short pair of fingerless mitts out of it.



Action shot! Also, a picture of my fuzzy mitts from last post where they can be seen in actual use... and in sunlight no less. Much thanks to the Portland weather gods for sending a bit of sunshine our way.