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.

Gotland wool hat: Croft Wools and Weavers

 

The Great Escape

Handspun Herwick Slippers

Ah, Woolfest over for another year. This year I leaped out of bed with excitement at the prospect: in fact the last time I remember feeling that same little buzz of anticipation in the morning was my first holy communion which was a very long time ago and the buzz had more to do with getting to wear brand new white mary jane shoes than receiving the Holy Ghost. I am sure I must have other happy morning memories but maybe not so many because all I can remember is those white shoes.

I digress.

Woolfest, ah. It was marvellous. The best bits were the talented knitwear designers Susan Crawford and Kate Davies whose designs look even better in the flesh. In typical Thimble style I couldn't think of a single thing to say to them, overwhelmed as I was, so I bought a couple of patterns instead: Susan Crawford: Frances and Kate Davies: Blaithin. After the cape fiasco I really need to start concentrating if I want to do these patterns justice, so it might be a good long while before I tackle them.

Speaking of capes, would you believe I had my crochet hook out today and was back polishing my...cape? There is simply so much wool in the darned thing that it stretched and started slipping off my shoulders and weighing me down like a wet sack and it was either fix it or mop the floor with it. So I hitched everything up a bit and crocheted an extra row around the neck edge and it is now behaving itself and not revealing my bra to the world which I used to think was quite cool when I was 17 but now find vexing. I am thinking about scattering little crochet daisies on it to cover up any little mistakes but I haven't decided if that is a really good idea or a really bad idea.

Speaking of crocheted flowers, our little family of handspun herwick slippers has just expanded. These little fellas are fleece lined and SO WARM, perfect for an English summer: 

his and hairs

acting sheepish

crochet flowers: a touch of femininity

making the fleece lining from a cheap blanket

Troll slippers

Once upon a time there was a stinky old Herdwick full of bits of straw and crispy beetles (and a spider or giant tick):

 

but with a little help from Rumpelstilskin we now have a fine pair of Troll slippers:

Hand spun Herdwick slippers

Lovingly lined to protect delicate feet:

Bobbles made with hand dyed Cheviot wool

and edged and bobbled with the same hand dyed wool featured in the Afghan (they looked like a couple of dead rats before these bits)....

...I'll let you in on a little secret...

...the pattern from The Knitter's Year (Debbie Bliss) was for a pair of UK size 5 delicate ladies slippers:

I guess I should have factored in the homespun quality of my still sheep-greasy yarn, for how else to explain the final size-12-and-counting slippers?

I think this calls for a smaller set of needles.

Is there such a thing as too many hobbies?

Remember spinning? Well, I got so excited about it that my NeverEndingMandalaQuilt was put on hold for a bit....which made me feel guilty about that and also about the fact that I have temporarily put on hold my SECRET project which i can't talk about because it is a secret...and also on hold is the crocheted Afghan and all the other crochet projects plus the jumper that I have been knitting for the last 2 years. That is not to mention my quilted Castlehead panorama project which I have to say never really left the ground but made me feel very happy and a little bit excited for several weeks last year. Oh and lets not mention the novel (embarrassed cough), the embryonic idea of which helped me while away a few happy hours when sunbathing covered from head to toe in factor 30 on one of the 4 sunny days of summer this year. 

So this is how far I have got with the spinning:

To the uninitiated this is 2-ply Herdwick. A very lucky person may find the occasional beetle spun up and twisted in amongst the fibres.

The final twine:

  above - on the Niddy Noddy; below - the Dingly Dangly

I still have quite a bit to spin and am looking forward to knitting it up into itchy garments...

...but for the last week I have gone back to embroidery, except that I keep getting distracted and why, oh why, did I ever open the Pandora's box of ancestry.co.uk?