I finished the alpaca beanie for the Snook! This was purely to use up the extra bits I had left over from making his scarf. I casted on 132 stitches and then just made the pattern up as I went. His scalp is pretty sensitive and he doesn’t like hats that grip too tightly, so I only did a minimum amount of ribbing at the bottom. (The alpaca is nice and soft too.) I put in a band of the same slipstitch pattern I used on the scarf, and I did radial decreases at the crown. I just need to weave in the ends and give it a block!
Only 24hrs left to donate to a dementia-related charity and be in the running to win a Smart, Sensational, Sun-Protecting (S3) Bucket Hat! We’re at $1892 total, so I’m really hoping it’ll hit $2000. Please see link in bio if you are able to contribute! ❤️
Fundraiser update: so far across all platforms we have raised $1258 AUD for dementia-related charities! Thank you to all 20 of you who have donated. There’s still plenty of time to enter the raffle to win a Smart, Sensational, Sun-Protecting (S3) Bucket Hat, as modelled here by me… 🫶
As you probably know if you’ve followed this blog or any of my social media accounts, back in 2018 I worked for Amazon Web Services and I had the idea to sew myself an AWS dress to wear to tech events around the world. It was so popular, my colleagues even made t-shirts and stickers! In 2023 I raised the bar with the AWS dress v2, which had matching sneakers.
As of 2024 though, I’m retired and it seems a bit silly to hang on to these dresses. Why not turn them into something fun and raise money for an important cause? So the dresses have become 14 Smart, Sensational, Sun-Protecting (S3) Bucket Hats, and you can win one by donating to this fundraiser.
Dementia is a terrible disease that has affected our family in recent years. It really, really sucks to watch someone you know and love just change and disappear. I’d like to help other families going through this, and hopefully even work towards a cure.
To do that I need your help! Please make a donation to support my efforts and help me reach my goal to beat dementia. You can donate through:
Or if neither of those options work for you, feel free to donate to a dementia-related charity in your own country*.
All funds raised (through channels 1 and 2 above) will support the work of Dementia Australia to provide vital support services for people living with dementia, their families and carers. These services include counselling, support groups, education and training.
For every $25 AUD* you donate, you’ll get one entry into a raffle for one of the 14 hats. I will draw the winners at random on November 1st, 2024, and I will cover postage anywhere in the world. Please make sure you are contactable if you win! You can donate as many times as you’d like but you can only win one hat, and you don’t get to choose which one you get. (They’re all the same size anyway.)
* If you donate via option 3, please email me a screenshot of your donation and I will ensure you are entered into the draw. You’ll get 1 entry for the equivalent of $25 AUD in your own currency.
Disclaimers: Obviously I don’t work for AWS anymore, and I don’t claim ownership over their logo or any of their service icons. The hats were made by me from the dresses I wore as part of my employment for AWS, and I won’t ever be making any more. If I can’t contact you within a week, I reserve the right to draw a new name and send the hat to somebody else.
Thank you for your support.
PS for the sewists: if you’re curious about the pattern I used you can download it for free here! Each hat is fully lined, which means I actually had to sew 28 hats (30 if you count the prototype I made). 😅
Maile Sweater and Swirl Hat Hey, I knitted something! It’s been months and months, actually. But last week my friend Kevin’s first child was born, and such a thing demands commemoration. I picked the pattern and the yarn before the birth, assuming that the combination would work for either gender. It helps that the father is Irish. 🙂
The cardigan is the Maile Sweater. It’s knitted from the bottom up in one piece. I actually knitted it twice: the first time on 3.5mm needle as per the pattern, and the second time on 3.75mm needles. (I thought it looked a little small so I frogged it and started over.) On the first attempt, I followed the pattern exactly including knitting the sleeves flat and joining them with no cast-off stitches. I wasn’t thrilled with it though, and the underarms had a few stitches that looked very stretched. So when I frogged and reknitted, I took the opportunity to experiment. The sleeves were knitted this time in the round via Magic Loop. When I joined them, I set aside 4 live stitches on the body and 4 live stitches on the underarm of the sleeve on waste wool. I later grafted these together (a la Elizabeth Zimmerman). It makes for a very nice finish, and it definitely made those first few rows after joining easier.
The wool is “Merino Chubby Sock” in Barleygrass by the Knittery. One skein was plenty to knit the jumper, and I had so much left over that I actually made a matching hat. The pattern is the “Swirl Hat” from Sheepy Time Knits. And I still have wool left over! This stuff goes a long way.
As usual, there are more photos and details over on Ravelry: Maile Sweater / Swirl Hat. Now I just have to wait to get a photo of the baby actually wearing them!
Miller’s Hat for Snook It’s been pretty chilly around here lately, so I finally convinced the Snook to let me knit him a hat. This is tricky business. He doesn’t like things that make his head itchy. He’s hated every woollen beanie I ever put on him. I’d have to get creative. While surfing Ravelry one day, I came across this photo of a guy wearing the unusual Miller’s Hat. Hey, I thought. That looks neat! So I bought the pattern. I decided to go with Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (80% cotton, 20% wool) for the project, despite all the drawbacks. (Cotton isn’t as warm; knitting cables in cotton kills your hands; cotton tends to be a stiffer fabric than wool.) The main selling point was that I knew it definitely wouldn’t make his head “itch.” I ended up having to restart the hat a couple times because I kept stuffing up the herringbone stitch around the band. It’s not hard once you get the hang of it (i.e. read the chart symbols properly), and it looks really cool. I ended up adding quite a few stitches – a whole extra cable repeat’s worth – to make it looser and to compensate for my famously tight tension. I did the whole thing on a 5mm needle, not bothering to change for the cabled bit. I also skipped a couple of the plain rows towards the end, not wanting it to be too slouchy at the top. As for the edging, I just picked up a zillion stitches around the edge, not really caring about the number. (Basically, I winged the whole thing.) It looks… interesting, huh? He likes it. I think he looks like a damn hipster, but it’s unusual and slouchy and keeps his ears warm. That makes us both happy.
Brycie’s Outfit and Noro Ribbed Socks A couple finished objects to report! First up is an outfit for Andrew and Kathleen‘s new son, Bryson Burton. The whole set is knitted from two balls of the new Morris Empire 4ply in “Plumage”. Details for the vest, hat, and socks are all up on Ravelry. The vest was the trickiest, in that I was adapting a Sirdar pattern for 8ply. I ended up just knitting a bigger size and hoping for the best. It worked pretty well! I delivered the set (still a bit damp from the final blocking) to the happy parents on Sunday, and hopefully they’ll be able to post a piccie of him in it soon.
I also finished the Noro socks I started when I taught the Morris and Sons sock workshop last month. The pattern is Wise Hilda’s Basic Ribbed Sock, which I knitted out of Noro Kureyon Sock on two 2.75mm circular needles. (Rav details) I’m really pleased that I got the colour gradients to match up so nicely. (I wasn’t actually really trying.) I finished these off yesterday morning before work and put them straight on my feet. Man, there is nothing better than wool socks in winter. I feel my sock mojo starting to come back…
