Knitting Hats in the 1920s

a little note from future Charlotte: This post was written on my "rebound blog", when I thought I could be all fancy and have a proper website. Long story short - running a website is expensive & time consuming, and I just couldn't do it. After a little bit of grovelling, my original blog allowed me to come back - phew! So, just as a warning, this post might reference & link to said rebound blog, and you can click here to check it out if you so desire. Now, I'm going to hand back to past Charlotte...

I recently got my haircut, about 12 inches to be precise, and I have found that with my new 'do', I suit hats! Yay! For years I've made all these hats that I wanted, but could not wear, and now I can keep them all for myself - mwuahaha!

Ahem. That took a rather dark turn rather quickly, didn't it? Anyway, back to hats. So now I can adorn my small head with hand-knits, I was overwhelmed with the choice on Ravelry. I could not decide what to make. It then occurred to me that there might be something in my Ravelry queue that a 'past me' wanted to make.

knitting the hat inside out

It was then I laid my eyes on my favourite hat pattern of all time - Regina by Carina Spencer. This 1920s style cloche was right up my alley.

I dove straight into my stash, and found two skeins of Stylecraft Special DK in Magenta & Camel. I was dubious at first of pairing them together, but decided to take the risk.

The construction of this cloche was incredibly interesting, I learnt so much from making it. It does sound complicated, but I assure you, it is easy when you are actually knitting it. First of all, you don't need to do a gauge swatch. Amazing, right?! You begin the pattern by knitting an i-cord, then pickig up stitches in a certain way so your i-cord becomes a loop. Using that loop, you kit the band of the cloche. You do this by simply working a thin length of rib. Once you have done this, you increase in a certain manner so as to create a fan.

After casting off, it is time to change to the main colour. Pick up the stitches so that you are knitting the hat inside out (thi saves you having to purl constantly, making the pattern that much faster). After you have finished knitting the hat, turn it rightside out and sew the fan onto the hat (this was the trickiest bit, in my opinion).

Then - ta dah! ou have yourself a wonderful 1920s cloche. I can't tell you how much I loved making this, and wearing it. I love it so much that I knitted a newborn baby version of the hat, which I will show you after Mimi's Blogging Week has come to an end.

My version of the Regina. The camel yarn didn't photograph as well
as I had hoped. It comes out as a Mustard colour in these pictures.

I would love to make a few more of these in different colours... I'm hoping this winter I will have plenty of hats for myself. Perhaps even a few cotton berets for the summer. Oh, goodness, now I want to knit a hat. I'll see you guys tomorrow, for now why don't you head on over to Tami's place and check out more FO Friday posts?

Gloves for Genevieve

I really hate the fact that my blog has been so neglected over the past few months. I'm not going to promise any over night miracles, where I blog every single day, and I finish projects every week etc etc... all I'll promise is that I'll try to get it all back on track. My depression has been getting worse since June, and now it is very bad indeed, so I've lost interest in absolutely everything. Knitting? meh.... Blogging? certainly not. Spending time with my friends? hmm if I have to.

And I hate that I feel that way. Just this spring I was so excited about casting on new projects, finishing and gifting projects, and writing all my escapades down on this blog so you could share my joy and excitement. I want that feeling back, so I thought if I sink my teeth into blogging again, perhaps the constant writing about knitting will get me excited about the craft again.

So, today I am going to tell you all about a pair of lacy mittens. Ooooooooh!

My friend, Gene (Genevieve - such a beautiful name!), has been such a lovely friend to me over the past year. So, to say thank you, I am making her a little parcel of goodies. In that parcel is going to be a pair of mittens, as not only is the cold weather on its way, but she also suffers with quite severe arthritis so keeping her hands warm is very important!

I found a pattern called Della Mitts by Holly Terrell, which is a really cute mitten with a variety of stitches. If I tell you the honest truth, I was originally making these for my friend Sarah, for the Hand Warming Swap I am hosting over on the Ravelry group Wish Upon a Star, but I then decided perhaps they weren't for her, and continued them for my friend Gene.

I'm using two yarns: Life 4ply by Stylecraft in Melon, and Sirdar Town & Country 4ply Sock Yarn. The former is leftovers from the Delicate socks and Horseshoe Lace Cowl projects I made last year, and the latter yarn is a very small skein that my Nan gifted me from her stash. I thought these two yarns complemented each other well, and gave this pattern a bit of a 'twist'.

The pattern is very simple, and the only modifications I've made is that I accidentally did two garter ridges rather than three, when separating the lace cuff and the lace hand, and that I used two colours rather than one. Other than that, I have been following the instructions to the letter. I'm now onto the body of the second mitten, and I'm hoping that I'll have them finished by the weekend! :D

 Until tomorrow, dear friends. Until then, why don't you check out some wonderful posts by the rest of the WIP Wednesday gang? I promise you won't regret it!!