The Haunted Quilt: hat

Showing posts with label hat. Show all posts

Monday, 13 January 2014

brocken spectre or glory hat

Brocken spectre hat mark 1

This idea has been germinating since I encountered my first brocken spectre (also known as a Glory) a year ago.

Now although I may be guilty of a little superciliousness when it comes to the phenomenon of peak bagging, not so with bagging optical atmospheric phenomena - I would love to see them all. The photos below show my shadow on the clouds, surrounded by a rainbow.

For those of you who are spectre virgins, the "spectre" appears when the sun shines from behind the observer, who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist or fog. The light projects their shadow through the mist, often in a triangular shape due to perspective. The apparent magnification of size of the shadow is an optical illusion that occurs when the observer judges his or her shadow on relatively nearby clouds to be at the same distance as faraway land objects seen through gaps in the clouds, or when there are no reference points by which to judge its size. The shadow also falls on water droplets of varying distances from the eye, confusing depth perception. The head of the figure is often surrounded by the glowing halo-like rings of a glory, rings of coloured light that appear directly opposite the sun when sunlight is reflected by a cloud of uniformly-sized water droplets. The effect is caused by the refraction of visible light*.

You can see why this made me think about hats.

I wanted to make a lightweight hat but couldn't find the right colours in 4 ply wool, so went for cotton instead. My first attempt, like the little alpaca hat, ended up really really small. This month's learning experience was that cotton has almost no stretch so when knitting with cotton in the round using a fair isle type approach, one should leave very loose floats to avoid puckering and making a very small hat into a very very small hat. This is a well recognised trap that the overenthusiastic novice may fall into if she doesn't read useful tutorials like this by bygumbygolly.

The first brockenspectre hat was in fact so small that it didn't fit my neice's dolly. That was until I cut all the floats and sewed in the ends. I have a sneaking suspicion this is a knitting sin but at least I now have a just about usable hat rather than a really nice dishcloth:

Brocken spectre hat Mark 1

I embarked upon Mark 2 Brocken spectre hat with the gusto and the confidence of knowing the potential pitfalls to avoid. Imagine my surprise when exactly the SAME thing happened with Mark 2. Even worse, because I thought I had factored in the non-stretchability of cotton, I had cast on a spare dozen stitches for good measure, so when I was forced to cut the floats again due to it being too small, the result was a flaccid disappointment. A double wash and tumble dry just about salvaged it, but I suspect I have made another wear-in-the-house hat.

Mark 2 brocken spectre hat

The brocken spectre hat may never become the fashion must have of 2014 but it would look very good with a crepuscular shawl.

*Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocken_spectre

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

little hat

alpacaly ever after yarn

I was recently lucky enough to get hold of some of this beautiful alpaca yarn, still warm from our favourite local alpaca flock.

I had my eye peeled for some 4ply yarn in manly colours and this was a timely find. The handspun hand-dyed superfine merino has proven too hot for my warm-blooded friend so is in my hat collection now (;-)). I replaced it earlier in the year with this version which knitted up nice and quickly using yarn from the same place as Sheila's ponytail hat but even that is slightly too warm (!) so the alpaca seemed ideal.

ardelanish in-situ

ardelanish wool (mull)

The alpacaly ever after yarn (sold at temporary measure) is so soft and the colours so delicious that it was a pure sensory indulgence. The colours harmonise like a perfect cappuchino with chocolate sprinkles. Hard to believe this is un-dyed! There was also the odd bit of straw thrown in, which just added to its organic charm. Even the packaging was too good to throw away - these are the actual faces of the actual alpacas (*artist's impression). Added to this was the knowledge that this is limited edition yarn (I understand this was leftovers from the last shearing and they are planning to do aran weight in future which is what it says on the labels) so I can be assured there will not be throngs of Cumbrians wearing hats like mine...

...of course there is always a but....no thimble project would be complete without a but...

...next time I set out to make a manly hat I must not get so caught up in tactile rapture that I inadvertently make a frilly edge and a hat that is ever so little (but coincidentally just right for my own little head or a small child with a big head). I blame the circular needle. Looks like I'll have to go through the whole pleasurable experience all over again, poor me....

Sunday, 27 October 2013

autumn knits

thimble's loop

ponytail hat by Sheila

devil trap

Sigh. Winter looms.
The only good things about this time of year are coal fires, an extra hour in bed today, hot water bottles and home made woollies.
Purl Bee has some gorgeous free patterns, which is where I found this Shawl Collar loop Cowl. These knitters make me believe in the possibility of perfection and not only that but consistent perfection.
I'm not quite there...but now have a warm neck. I used up the last of my Torridon Croftwools hand-dyed Gotland for the lining - perfect and not at all itchy.

Sheila has been busy making ponytail hats for everyone she knows with ponytail potential - thanks! This is a tried and tested favourite from Knitty but she added the crocheted flower which transforms it. The wool used for this was from another Scottish holiday and a trip to Ardalanish weavers on the Isle of Mull. It actually smells of sheep (clean ones of course). The hat looks even nicer from the front but I got camera shy. I stumbled on the cutest pony tail hat pattern today: the urban homesteaders winter hat. Oh to be six again, I would have loved one.

Monday, 26 August 2013

blue wood and birthday knits

Green wood cup: Chlorociboria aeruginascens Cumbria 2013

I intended only to post about birthday knits today but this Green Wood cup justifies a double-themed posting.

A couple of years ago, Crazy Jake stumbled across some blue wood (in a secret place, deep in the forest) and brought me back a spelk. We learned that the blue/green wood stain is produced by a mushroom called the 'green elfcup' or 'green wood cup'. The mushroom is not often seen, but the green/blue xylindein-stained wood is more prevalent. The pigment in the wood is enduring and has been used in decorative woodworking for hundreds of years: see this post. We have been walking around for years with our 'eyes peeled' for this wood, but we never saw it again...until this week, when Crazy Jake re-stumbled upon it. Having found not only the wood, but a smattering of little elfcups, I was most eager to be taken on a blue wood safari.

Thimble in the wild

The green wood cup has long been on my list of 'things in nature I would really like to see one day' so it was fitting that it shouldn't be too easy and this blue wood safari was not without risk. Look carefully and you will see me in red, in a sea of bracken, tendrils twisting round my ankles, threatening to engulf me.. then there were the slippy rocks and the faery shoelace-untiers; the hidden bogs with fetid bog-stink; the slithery slope and the giant gravity-defying boulders above our heads. When, sweat-slicked and weary, we finally tracked down our prize, there were the FLIES. But it was worth it....

Green wood with green woodcups (and fly)

These mushrooms are really small. The flies (and the fact I kept sliding down the slope and the big rock above me was making me nervous) meant we couldn't linger. Lucky for me for the fly conveniently landed in shot - a perfect scale marker to show the tininess of the fungus. Unfortunately we brought back from safari some even tinier nature gifts - 2 days later and Crazy Jake is still finding the world's smallest ticks on him - we stopped counting at 12.

Can't think of a segue from blue wood to birthday knits, but I just had to mention these beautiful gifts knitted for me by mum - a slouch beret and shawlette. The shawlette I especially love - it is knitted in 4 ply 45% silk, 55% superwash merino and I have been wearing it all week, which speaks volumes about the Cumbrian summer.

Sunday, 6 January 2013

Escargot helmet

Last year, without a specific project in mind but unable to resist, I bought some lovely hand-dyed wool from Croft Wool and Weavers in Torridon (mentioned in the post 'good hats'):

nettle

weld

Inspired by my current Poirot box set marathon, I was looking for a Cloche hat pattern. Must be getting a bit mature in my tastes because although this is my 3rd time through this box set, for the first time I find myself admiring Miss Lemon's style:

Miss Lemon

I scoured the net and came across this magnificent free pattern on Ravelry, designed by Veronica Parsons: the Escargot hat. There are lots of versions on google images and I noticed that many of them are a bit roomy. I have a tiny head (no wasted space in there) so I reduced the pattern by 10 stitches:

Escargot cloche

Veronica Parson's 'Escargot' worn by Thimble

So far I have worn it once and received many exclamations of admiration, awe and astonishment. What a hat! I think it makes me look like a warrior lady soldier...

Chalcidian helmets

...but someone else said it looks like an old american football helmet. Nevertheless I feel I have notched it up a step in the style stakes for 2013.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Good hats

Herdwick hat

Herdwick hat with lining

I was planning to talk about every good hat I ever knitted or had knitted or bought hand-knitted or admired, but realised it was a bit ambitious and would involve too many pictures of my head.

So instead I have picked 2 recent lovelies. First is the hand-dyed hand crocheted Herdwick hat I bought at Woolfest this year. I believe it was made at Crookabeck farm. A Herdwick hat?! Yes, that is correct, an itchy scratchy Herdwick hat. The colours are incredible - those hand-dyed greens really do shimmer in the all too brief glimpses of Cumbrian sunshine - always makes me think of the iridescent Green Tiger Beetle for some reason. I have no idea how the spinner managed to make something like this into something so vivid, I have a lot to learn about dyecraft.

Nevertheless, although I tried to be stoical, it really was like wearing a hair shirt...I think...and before long I added a lining. Now it is my all time favourite hat.

Second I will mention this hand spun Gotland wool hat which we bought from Croft Wool and Weavers in Torridon. The couple who spin and dye and weave this wool from their own sheep had a lot of interesting things to tell us about wool and sheep. One fact I recall is that the harder the life for a sheep (the bleaker the winter, the crappier the weather, the sparser the diet), the finer/ softer the wool. I might have got that completely wrong as I only had half an ear on what he was saying - I was too busy fondling all the lovely scarves and shawls to pay full attention.

Anyway this hat caught our attention for its simplicity and the unusual gathered top. We decided it was definitely a man's hat even though we were told it was not committed to any particular sex and could be whatever we wanted it to be. I think that was a sales pitch. Not sure what makes a hat a man's hat but this hat has whatever it takes.