Tulishaaa

I love reading about how designers take inspiration from the latest trends, items from books, films, TV, and then turning them into a beautiful knitted item. Now, I would never go as far to say that I myself am a designer but I get many ideas from things I've seen in the high street etc etc, and although many of them never get written up as proper patterns, some of them do.

Last Saturday night I was watching the first live shows of The X Factor (UK Edition), and while judge Tulisa was chatting to the very talented Lucy Spraggan (see that clip here), I noticed the hat she was wearing. It was a it was a simple rib Beanie, knitted in a black - white gradient yarn.

The next morning I re-watched the show (I'm like that with the X Factor, I can watch it over and over again very easily) and spent the entire time staring at Tulisa's hat. 'That's it!!' I exclaimed (fortunately I was in the room alone), 'I just have to knit that hat!' I hobbled upstairs and found two skeins of sparkly yarn hidden in the bottom of my stash. They were King Cole Galaxy in two colourways, Venus (which is plain black) and Jupiter (which is a mix of black and grey).

I settled back down on the sofa with a slip of paper and started scribbling down the design for the basic pattern, then got out my needles and set to work. That's right...

I did rather well knitting it up, I was halfway through the body when I realised I hadn't increased before starting the body, which basically means it wouldn't have enough slouch to become a Beanie. So, I ripped back to the brim, increased and then once again to halfway through the body of the hat when there was another 'D'OH!' ... I had made the brim too short. I tried to rip back to the brim but some strange things happened which meant I had to re-start the whole thing.

I am now a third of the way through the brim and I'm really liking how the sparkles are spreading themselves out. Sometimes they end up in a clump but I've found that if you simply push the sequin through the yarn it'll go onto the wrong side, and visa versa if you haven't got many sequins in one particular area on the right side.

I'm working on getting the pattern finished & published for this weekend. The pattern will be fittingly entitled 'Tulisa', is beginner friendly and will be available for free *smiles*.

If you're wondering why today's post is entitled 'Tulishaaa', you must watch this hilarious audition from this years season of The X Factor. Once you've seen the whole clip, you'll understand completely why I've named it so ;)

(Today's blog post was inspired by the 100 Days 100 Words list I compiled a while ago, you can find that list here)