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
 

Woolfest again

Organic rabbit on a mole hill planted with grass seeds

This little chap was a lucky find at Woolfest 2013. As you can probably tell, he is organic. I am not 100% sure but think he was from Garthenor Organic Wool and was supposed to be a present for a small child but on reflection he is a keeper.

This time last week I was riding on a Woolfest wave of pure happiness - in my opinion it was the best one yet and learning from previous years I had saved up my pocket money to avoid disappointment. There were the old favourites like Susan Crawford (the Frances pattern is on my list of projects to do, only the Nile green Excelana yarn has sold out at the moment) ...and even though I know that it will take about 5 years before I get around to it (because of the affliction of having TOO MANY HOBBIES), I was far too excited to find the Kate Davies Paper Dolls pattern on sale to let it slip by. Although I was very much tempted by the gorgeous Titus Yarn at the Baa Ram Ewe stall, every time I went to look I found it full of people squashed in like sheep in a pen, so maybe next year...

Kate Davies: Paper Dolls

Susan Crawford: Frances

Speaking of squashes, the Textile Garden trestle tables were as popular as ever - can't think of a simile for the throng of beady-eyed women rooting through the tubs of beautiful buttons - like bees on clover? like seagulls on chips? Though nearly scared off by their intensity, I braved the crowd and it was worth it for these tiny wooden buttons:

The Textile Garden: wooden engraved buttons

A nice Estonian man accompanied by his daughter (both dressed in the traditional costume of the island of Saaremaa), told me all about how they are working hard to keep the traditional craft alive and are travelling far and wide to tell people all over the world all about it. The Nordic style knitwear was so beautiful- each district has a different distinctive pattern. Because they had travelled so far and got dressed up so nicely and had such lovely mittens and socks, I bought these too: 

Saarema Wool Association mittens and socks

Although I have been sewing more than knitting this last year, in the run up to Woolfest I dusted off my spinning wheel and have had a few (tricky) alpaca projects on the go (more of that later). I have also been buzzing with Fair Isle ideas so I was delighted to discover Polly Purl who designs and makes these Fair Isle sweaters with playful original Fair Isle patterns. I especially like the burnt orange and grey and the raincloud design. This is very suitable for Cumbria and is top of my birthday wish list.

Polly Purl

This is just a little selection of the many marvellous things to be discovered at Woolfest. Just writing about them has made me happy all over again. On that note, I think I'll go and do some tricky knitting in the sunshine.