More beanies, blanket work and new yarn

We're a week into the new school term after three weeks of a super-lazy winter holiday.  The season has already turned here, the first blossoms have appeared on the fruit trees, but we have also just seen the first light dusting of winter snow on the mountains and suddenly it's the coldest it has been the past couple of months!

Winter = beanie time, so I set myself a target of a beanie a day for one week, which would then be delivered to one of the many Madiba Day projects country-wide.  The idea was to work quickly, with thicker yarn, so I tried out this Kartopu Cotton Spray yarn, a beautiful, smooth cotton/acrylic blend.

Although the yarn was lovely to work with, it didn't really deliver on the colour promise
and looked like vanilla ice cream with 100's & 1000's that melted :-0

See ?  Oh well, it is soft and snuggly and will keep someone warm.

While I had my tidy little plan of 7 beanies, my dear darling husband promised his associate office in Cape Town a BAGfull of beanies for their Madiba Day contribution to a home for disabled children in Gugulethu...and he juuust remember to tell me with a few days to go.  Luckily, the helpful hooky ladies  of George and some in Cape Town heard my sudden, hysterical plea for help, and after the weekend I had these to send off:

To this was added a bag from my CT friends and together we delivered more than
the hastily-made promise :-D

Holidays also means roadtrippin' time, and we went down the N2 to a farm stall complex (comprising La Bella Deli, Die Rooi Aalwyn, Bali Trading and a couple more) outside Riversdale, where I spotted these beauties:

A cotton pouch/purse 

I totally loved this beanie, but the yarn -though beautiful - is quite hard and scratchy

Granny throw for your chair?

Beautiful cushion covers (and a clever plan for all those loose motifs)

 While my boys were off hunting (we had one family hunting weekend and one only for The Men - that is the dads and cousins) - I worked on the Cheap & Cheerful blanket.  

All of us had success!  My two boys and their cousins shot their first blesbok - very proud of their contribution to the deep freeze - and I at last finished with the blanket, with only a few ends still staring me in the eye.

Early morning hooking in bed

I must confess that I really had to motivate myself to complete this one! For all that I do understand people preferring or being limited to this type of acrylic, it really isn't a joy to work with.  That said, I do hope to show with this little challenge that cheap yarn does not have to be nasty looking.

I was also treated to a sample of Moya Yarn's new Bulky Plush, a thick, soft cotton!

These came in the mail - the soft, muted colours perfect for a prezzie that I need to hook up quickly
for MIL's birthday one of these days.

Of course I had to try it out immediately. I love to sit and hook over a coffee, and took my hooky with me to this tea garden in the mountains. When my boys took off with the proprietor to chase away baboons at a nearby house, I took my chance to get in a few rows :-)

Hooky with a view at Over the Mountain

I might have halfway caught up with my laziness at posting now...

I fell smack bang into the trap of Instagram, when I KNEW that it would be an abyss of utterly beautiful images on the one hand, and the ease and convenience of a quick upload plus three words and a couple of hashtags on the other (but have you seen the lists of hashtags getting longer and longer? It looks more like advertisements that anything else).  So after 7, 8 months there I decided to drastically cut the accounts I follow and clear my feed a bit (and the blog feed!) and I must follow up my own posts there with a blogpost here, because that's the other thing I realised - I miss writing about the process, the idea and the progress and the mistakes made and lessons learnt until the end.*  I also miss reading about other bloggers' processes**, because more and more we see beautiful images, styled beyond belief, but less about the how and the why. And that is why I, for one, started to blog - to document my own, and read and learn from others.   

*And as I write and want to add labels, I realise there are no labels because I forgot to write about the Cheap and Cheerful Blanket's progress!  A next post then.

**Sandra of Cherry Heart wrote a recent post about her first project - and she thinks of it as a failure :-) and that's what I really liked about Blogland from the beginning - to see how and what others learnt, because that's how I then learnt. That might be what got me thinking.

So there.  Off to the couch I go to end with the ends of ends of the C&C.  I'm still not saying anything about the Summer Throw, notice?  It will come :-D  Ends an'all. 

Meanwhile, beanies

One day I was still contemplating the next topic for Blog Week and the next day it was the (end of ) the next month.

How does that happen?

Where did the days go???

The Summer Throw aka Projek Bohemia has long been finished - except for the ends...which is way I can really boast about it :-P
(where it started, and proof that it is actually finished)

So I did what I always do and that is Something Else.  In this instance, I made beanies:

First off, one for Sensei Lilian:

It was her birthday and she wanted something in black and white and "that green you're working with".  I said I refuse to do those colours but I'll do it in charcoal and she will like it. So I used Elle Classic Wool Blend for the charcoal, Drops Cotton Light in natural (frustration, frustration, the SPLITting!) and a little bit of lefover Vinnis Nikkim in Khaki.

I just recently made my first popcorns, so popcorns it had to have and I love making those!

And she loved the beanie. 

A Boy Beanie 

Completed at last was a beanie for little boy Michal whom I have promised something crocheted so long ago that I'm positively ashamed of myself.  So he gets this blue number in unlabelled handspun merino from either cowgirl blues of Karoo Moon. 

A Girl Beanie

Mich has a sister Lize who has been waiting even longer.  Mom said a slouchie would do, and stripey with pink (and I'm also not so fond of sugary pink), so it's more of a cerise with whatever matched.
And popcorns :-)

And while I'm procrastinating, a twistie:

Anneke had half the country making twisties last winter, so I had to catch up.  1 ball of King Cole Riot was enough, and I decided to make it in granny stripes instead of dc's.  I also made it a bit narrower, but higher, and quite like that. 

So now all of those are out of the way, I can go back to working away the ends working on the Cheap & Cheerful blanket start a new poncho knit something frog that knit something new...

But first, a hunting weekend.  It's school holidays! I promised myself I'd finish something during the holiday, so as also, the hooky will go along and be worked on next to the fire.

Of beanies and baby blankets

I had to make a quick change to the helmet beanie my littlest gave his friend - first he wanted a nose bridge thingey (didn't work out), then I convinced him of a visor/mouthguard combo, which was happily accepted:

Little Boy S is armed and ready

I used a lovely mottled grey pure merino DK from I Love Yarn, used a basic beanie pattern and improvised the front, the back, the guard...most everything!

And then there was another birthday, a Dr Seuss-party and a two year-old, who got a Cat in the Hat hat lopsided beanie. I had an evening and wasn't going to sit up all night, so almost immediately abandoned my plans of a tall, slouchy beanie-hat, and it became... a cone.  But he loved it!

Ginger E almost went to sleep with this one on

So I was ready to take up the heritage Blanket again, that's been thrust to the back of the cupboard for too long...and then got diverted by a friend's pregnancy, and oooh, a favourite waitress also has a baby coming...what the heck.  Let me do baby blankets then!

Here's the first one, and I should complete it soon as there's a 1600 km road trip waiting today and tomorrow.  Lots of hooky time on the N1 South!

Starter pack

I'm using Vinnis Nikkim, Vinnis Bambi and I Love Yarn Imagine

One swimming lesson's production (I sit outside on the grass, in the shade, while the boys are splashing away)

I'm not that crazy about the V-stitch, but it has to go quick, grow fast, be cool (summer in Pretoria) (which is also why I decided on the cotton/bamboo yarns).

Off I go, the yarn is packed but nothing else!

                                                                                                          

Crochet with a View

Now and then you'll see a photo that makes wish you took it.

As when Ons Hekel-member Wendy Erasmus-Koutlis posted this:
(have a look at her website)

How to offset bright colours against a glorious landscape

She lives in the eastern Free State, with some of the most spectacular scenery in the country.
She hooks beautiful blankets. 

How to show off a blanket

Even directed away from the mountains, the Free State farmscape is stunning. 

How to glam up an old barb-wire fence

Suburban Pretoria, with only the tiniest hint of the Magaliesberg outside my bedroom window just doesn't compare. 

All I could do was to hook a hastily-done beanie to an equally rusted fence during our hunting trip last weekend...with a smile and a wink to Wendy ;-)

Uhm...at least it's picking up the green :-)

Love your outdoor photos, Wendy.  Keep on hooking, keep them coming!

That day in the life of the Berry Beanie

The little Berry Beanie started as an idea, a celebration of a baby to come.

It was to be for a girl, it was to be a pretty thing, with a beautiful pattern and deep berry colour.

That it was to be a Berry Beanie was incidental and perfect, as this is their family name.

This first yarn choice of Imagine by I Love Yarn didn't work, the colours weren't right. 

Then, a great red was found amongst the beauty of Bambi by Vinnis Colours.

Vinnis Bambi, colour Coral

The texture of the yarn did't suit the pattern, so a basic beanie pattern was used, and it worked out nice, with a simple scalloped edge.

But then, one day in April, with exactly one scallop to go - the baby was to be no more.

Almost done

The little beanie is waiting now, waiting for that last scallop to be made, the end to be worked away, and will then go on to another baby, a baby who might desperately need something as simple as a beanie, for whom this might be their only pretty little thing.

This post is part of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2014

A beanie for Waka

Last year, I made beanies with ear flaps for Waka's youngest son  and our nephew John in Ireland.  Waks wanted one too, and autumn has arrived, so here it is:

A Waka-beanie

I used Kismet Spice, a lovely DK acrylic, and hooked with a double thread.  The pattern is a basic beanie, starting with a 12 dc ring and increasing from there.  The earflaps...I winged.

Ears gonna be warm

Think I might hook new ones for my boys as well.

Here's a great blog post on designing and sizing beanies.  Yeeeees, it is in Afrikaans, but between Google Translate and the following, it should be easy enough to figure it out.

kb (kortbeen) = Single Crochet

hlb (halwe langbeen) = Half Double Crochet

lb (langbeen) = Double Crochet

There you go, hook a beanie!

67 minutes - Madiba 95

Last year I wrote about Mandela Day, and what I did with my 67 minutes of community service.

Regarding the homeless man, I must sadly report that he is still there, just moved around the corner now, and spends his days sitting on the sidewalk, sleeping, or drinking beer (he sells what ever he gets, and buy beer from the liquor store on the opposite corner).

So my beanie this year won't go to him.

I met two friends in a local coffee shop, and we hooked beanies for various purposes.  Mine will start a second stash that I will donate at some stage, most likely to a hospital.  The first stash  was donated to Operation Winter Hope .

Happy Birthday, Madiba. 

Cappo by my best barista, MX, at Pure Café.
Crumbs of a Two Nut Chocolate Torte in the background :-)

Newspapers, radio and tv were wishing him well since early this morning, with reports flooding of variuos community service projects people are doing today, from coocking and serving food at old-age homes, to learning a domestic worker to knit!

"Tata" being a respectful way of referring to an elder.  

Will update on interest projects reported!

Hunting season has opened

Hunting season has opened and The Dad is on his second hunt of the year.

Our Dad is a bow hunter and keeps us in an annual supply of free-range, low-fat, organic venison. He hunts either from a hide (sits high up in a tree or in a shelter for hours in the freezing cold, or walk-and-stalk, where you literally stalk the target with your bow in hand gilly-suit on and looking like something out of Star Trek.  

We like to go with a couple of times during the season, and that means a weekend in the bush, huge campfire, testosterone and adrenaline levels of the boys up against the roof.

And it's very cold early in the morning, and evenings around the fire.

Of course we need new warm beanies!

I sussed out various yarns with variegated patterns, or combinations of yarns, until I found this one, in a camouflage patter.  How lucky!, I thought.

But it was horrible to hook with.    Have you EVER tried tried crocheting with this?  I couldn't see the stitches and holes!

It did't survive beyond the second round. 

Tried on location, wasn't good.

Out of desperation, I texted a friend, early on this Sunday morning.  The lovely Marlene of One of a Kind Yarns didn't even think twice about my plea for "maybe, if she has time, someday, to try and dye a camou pattern for me...) 

Dyed and done that very same afternoon!

Yeeeha!  I got it the next day and tried it out immediately.  This was Marlene's first go at camou, so she did a charcoal batch and the olive-rust-charcoal one.

Her DK wool is a thing of beauty, it works up like Rowan DK, and I love, love, love it.    

Put my nr 5 Prym to work

I used a basic beanie pattern, starting with 4 ch, closing the circle, 12 DC, then increasing until it was wide enough, added a cm or so in extra length to cover the ears against the cold, and learnt to do crab stitch to finish this one's edge:

I might crab stitch every second thing from now on

(And here Blogger starts buggering me around. Again)

(Why, why WHY does it rotate my pics?  I've tried every possible option in Picasa and Picture Viewer but it ends up...on the side.  Or upside down.)

BUGGER.

So Dad gets the charcoal beanie, as it's less visible to animals that the green-rust-charcoal and he would want to use it on the actual hunt.

Dad's blackish beanie

The boys play around the fire mostly, and pretend they're on the hunt.  One got the crab stitch edge, the other just a few rows of SC:

For the boys

As for me?

I will look pretty by the fire, with condensed milk-sweetened rooibos tea, reading or hooking away, wearing my upside down girly beanie (Rowan handspun Merino, if I remember correctly)

I've since decided to frogg the last 3/4 rows, didn't like the cloche effect on this one.  

Mom's rainbowish beanie

They're ready and waiting.  

Yes, the ears will be warm!

A hat for Gené

I don't usually like to copy a pattern that is raging through Blogland...ok, except for the Neat Ripple that I always want to hook!  So even though beautiful,  no wall flower hangings, or owls etc. was going to be hooked here.  But then I saw my friend Gené the other day, and she's undergoing chemo, starting to lose some hair, and Lucy's hat was relatively recently posted...so I offered a hat.

I still had some lovely soft Vinni's stashed. She preferred the cotton (Vinnis Nikkim), which was a good choice, I think. The hat looks more floppy than Lucy's, but it had to be very soft and comfortable.  'Khaki'  must be one of my absolute favourite Nikkim colours, I love the subtle variation in the hand-dye.

Ek hou gewoonlik nie daarvan om 'n patroon te doen wat die gier van die oomblik is in Blog-land nie...maar Lucy se hoedjie was 'n uitsondering toe ek iets wou maak vir vriendin Gené.  Sy is tans besig met chemoterapie en wil nie 'n pruik kry nie, daarom wou ek haar 'n mooi hoedjie gee. 

Gelukkig lê daar hope Vinnis in die kas rond. Sy het die Nikkim-katoen bo die bamboes verkies, 'n goeie keuse omdat dit lekker sag is.  Die 'Khaki' is seker een van my gunsteling Nikkim-kleure. 

One soft, floppy hat done

The flowers are the Pointy Petal flower of Crochet with Raymond and the leaves are Lucy's.  I used Vinnis Serina (bamboo).

Die blompatroon is die  Pointy Petal flower van Crochet with Raymond en die blare is van  Lucy. Vir beide het ek Vinnis Serina (bamboes) gebruik.

Two flowers to brighten it up

I like the hat. Hope it fits!  

Shall I try a wintry one as well? 

Here I'm parading it at our regular Craft Share get-together (more about that in a next post)

Craft Sharing

Ek hou van die hoedjie.  Hoop dit pas!

Dink ek moet 'n winter-ene ook probeer...

En hier poseer ek ewe by ons laaste Craft Share.

Ed.  It does fit and totally matches her eyes :-)

Beanies on a road trip

We took a quick road-trip this week; roughly 1300 km in one day, Pretoria (Gauteng) to Reebok (Garden Route, Western Cape):

It's a long road, with some Very Straight stretches

We don't mind the driving; my husband averages 5000 km/month for work, I did nearly the same.

The problem is when you're not the one driving...it can get quite boring.

So the boys had a Playmobile each, books to read and draw in and we stopped every two hours

 for a quick runaround.

I had something to do 'redemption' with...

Some yarns bought at "Knit" in Cork, Ireland, this holiday

It wasn't a lot, and it was on sale, but still, I didn't have a plan with it.

That was, until one of the members of my crochet group posted about the need for beanies for premature babies at a hospital near her (and actually, everywhere in South Africa).

So beanies it would be and I promptly forgot a pattern (and mind you, never for once thought about searching for one with the exact iPhone I was taking the pictures with...blame it on fatigue, we arrived 36 hours before back from Cork via Amsterdam, a 90 min and 11h flight away).

I managed a flat circle, increased for a round or two, and then just continued with a few rows:

Between Kroonstad and Bloemfontein: one down, looks fine!

Then I tried one in htr...

Nr 2, with some edging, finished just before Colesberg.

Back to the trebles, and now with the Rico Baby Cotton, I couldn't wait:

Some colour changes (and what horrible joins!)
Near De Rust.

Then I tried working with a double strand...from one ball.  Yes.

The inevitable happened:

Some swearing here...

But I recovered and promptly returned to a single strand:

My favourite, the variegated one.  Finished 10 km fro our destination.

Between the stops and reading I managed five beanies.
Not too bad, I thought.

Tomorrow (Saturday), we'll take  on the return journey, this time over two days.  I'll be working on beanies again, as well as trying out squares for a placemat CAL we're planning with the Ons Hekel group.

Time to shake out the sand and do some packing!

Klaar! Nog blomserpe en 'n beanie

O wee, so hardloop die tyd en die een na die ander blomserpie word gemaak. 

Ek was bang hierdie lyk soos gebakte eier, maar die daisy het mooi deurgekom.  vriendin Elaine was mal daaroor, en toe kry sy dit present. 

Oh my world, time flies and I keep on hooking my flowery scarves.

I was afraid hat this might turn out like fried egg, but it did end up looking like a daisy.  My friend Elaine loved it when she saw me working on it, so she got it as a present. 

Daisie-serp vir Elaine

Em omdat dit so lekker en vinnig werk, en omdat ek die regte kleure Vinnis Serina (bamboes) en Nikkim (katoen) hier gehad het, en ek weet dis vriendin Julia se kleure, kry sy toe 'n pienkperse.

And because it hooks up so quickly  and I had the right colours in Vinnis Serina (bamboo) and Nikkim (cotton), and I knew my friend Julia loves these colours, she got this one:

Pienk en Pers vir Julia

En hierdie is was vir mnr M, bg Julia se eggenoot, wat my uitdaag vir 'n beanie met "wings and a ♥"

Na die 3e patroon het ek iets gekry wat lyk soos vlermuisvlerke...maar ek het hom aanbeveel om dit dalk nie in die openbaar te dra nie!

This one was for mr M, Julia's better half, who dared me for a beanie "with wings and a ♥".
The third pattern I tried vaguely resembled bat wings...but I recommended that he maybe he shouldn't wear this in public!  Was great fun, though.

Beanie with wings and a ♥ for Julia's man

The flowery scarf pattern can be found at The Yvestown Shop
A friend gave me instructions for the heart over coffee - I wouldn't be able to repeat it even if I tried!