A Frozen hat

The result of my experiment! A wintery hat for M. As soon as she put it on, she burst into singing "Let it go! Let it go!" Indeed, it does remind of the movie Frozen!

M loves it. She couldn't wait until it was finished (which is why it is a bit on the small side - it's hard to keep adding rows when an impatient 6-year old asks you every five minutes "When are you finished Mum?"). She put it on as soon as it came of the needles and has worn it non stop since then (yes, even indoors).

Inspiration came from this pin. I love how the pattern slowly fades away into the white. In hindsight, I should have used finer yarn, in order to let the pattern come out better. O well, that's a good reason to dye some more yarn....

A big fat pom pom tops the hat like a giant snowball. I used up half a ball of wool for it, but it's worth it!

Below you find the pattern that I used.
The hat is 96 stitches in the round, which results in 6 repetitions of the pattern.

Experimenting...

It's been very quiet here on the blog. That usually signifies that real life is not so quiet. Indeed, life has been very busy lately and I haven't had any time to sew, let alone to blog.
Unfortunately, this situation is going to last a while. We're going to renovate the attic to create three bed rooms for our kids. Currently, it is used as our office, sewing room and storage space. We're in the middle of sorting stuff, getting rid of the things we don't need anymore (which is A LOT), and storing everything else -including my sewing necessities- elsewhere in the house.
I don't know how long it will take before I can set up my new sewing room. I guess at least a month or two. In the meantime, I'll resort to an other medium: knitting!

For my latest knitting project, I did a fun experiment in the kitchen. At least, I thought it was fun! My husband did not!
I hand dyed some wool; using food coloring, vinegar and a microwave. As you can imagine, the latter combination was NOT appreciated by my husband! I must admit, it looked and smelled as if I was brewing some toxic concoction. At some point during my experiment there even was a small explosion in the microwave, covering its whole inside in blue spatters. But really, it was a super cool, simple and satisfying experiment.

There are a lot of tutorials on wool dyeing on the internet. Since they are all slightly different, I decided to wing it and follow the instructions loosely. I soaked the (pure wool) yarn, put it in a bowl with water, food coloring and a few spoons of vinegar, put the stuff in the microwave, and let it simmer for a few minutes, until the water looked quite clear (or, in one case, the stuff exploded - probably because I used too little water). Then I rinsed the yarn, and hung it out to dry. Only a few hours later, the first stitches of my new hat were on put on the needles...

Curious about the end result? Stay tuned!

Autumn colors

We are currently having the most beautiful Indian Summer here in the Netherlands. If not for the changing colors and crisp mornings, you could think that it's the end of summer instead of fall. So it's not really time for hats yet. Nevertheless, I wanted to share this hat that I knitted last year, if only for it's beautiful autumn colors.

This is the Luuk hat, a free and simple pattern found on Ravelry. By alternating rows of knitting and purling, you get this fun ribbed hat. It has a lot of stretch, so it fits all of the kids, and even fits me. Let's see who will grab it most often this winter.

I used multicolored yarn, turning from magenta to green, teal and gold, with a deep blue undertone. 

Similar colors as these autumn flowers (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) that brighten up our garden these days...

Knitting time

Fall is in the air, so that means that I feel like knitting again.

This hat is for a little newborn girl. It's the aviatrix again, a free pattern which you can find here. Even though it looks quite complex, it's actually very simple. A very satisfying little project!

Koolhaas hat

Last winter I discovered knitting. 

For me, it provides the perfect activity to do when my kids are around. It requires some attention, but just so much that I can still keep an eye on them, answer their questions, and give them the feeling that I'm there while still doing something for myself.

 

It is also easy to take along to the playground or in the train. And moreover, knitting goes at a slower pace than sewing. Which is a good thing, since otherwise I would produce more than my kids' wardrobes could handle...

 

Nevertheless, after I got smitten with the virus, within a few weeks I had knitted hats for both kids, my husband, and even for the baby that was still residing snugly within my belly.... So I needed a challenging project, which would keep me busy a bit longer. I found the Koolhaas pattern from Jared Flood on Ravelry, and loved it. Especially the crown, which reminds me of a sunflower.

 

The hat was originally intended for myself, but my son confiscated it. And I must say, it fits him better than me. At least, now I get to enjoy the view of the top of this hat way more often than I would if I had worn it myself...  

And even though this is a knitting project I'm nevertheless linking this post to Sew All 26 at No Big Dill:

Aviatrix

It's september and the first chilly mornings have arrived. So, this Aviatrix hat will keep Jonatan's head warm during the bike ride to daycare. I was super productive during our holiday, so after finishing Jonatan's Aviatrix, I just continued knitting. I made a newborn size for our little nephew, who has arrived in the meantime.  

The Aviatrix pattern can be freely downloaded from Ravelry. I love this pattern! Although it looks quite complicated, it's actually rather simple. This was the second knitting project I tackled (the first was a straight scarf!), and once I had figured out the instructions, it went very smoothly. 

Fortunately for me, yet another small baby has arrived, so I'm allowed to knit another one of these cute hats!

Another hat

Knitting is addictive, so I decided that Tomboy also needed a new hat (even though she still had one that perfectly matched her jacket). She seems content with it...

Autumn colors

Bear got a new winter jacket, and of course he needed a matching hat... So I decided to knit one myself, using beautiful brown and blue wool. The first attempt resulted in a hat that was too small, but the second attempt worked out very well.