CCC Hat Yarn

This is the yarn I am using for the Castle Cat Couture (CCC) hat.

It is RYC Soft Lux - 64% merino wool, 10% angora, 24% nylon, 2% metallic fibre, 125m/137yds per 50g ball.

I dug a ball (Camel) out of the sale bin at John Lewis in January for my swatches, then bought another batch of it (Cashmere, colour shown here) from RKM Wools to work on the full scale hat.

While it does not look very promising on the ball, I have found it easy to work with and its 'boucle looking' texture disappears when it is knitted. There have been moments while knitting, where I have worried that it looks very plain. Then a reassuring ray of light has caught the hat, making the metallic thread glitter and bringing it to life.

Castle Couture Hat

This is the first project that I am working on - a hat!

- perfect for royal visits

- simple design allows your natural marmalade to glow in the sunshine

- essential for ladies sensitive about their ears - cover up evidence of fighting or hunting...

...rediscover your inner, demure damsel.

Just how fed up and irritated does this cat look...?! I could not help it, to me the picture simply yelled out, "HAT!"

Castle Cat Couture

I had a huge amount of fun putting my Puss in Boots entry together - I decided to enter about a week before the deadline, so there was no time to do anything except pound out a story, buy a cat magazine, pull out some art stuff and get on with it.

Originally, Castle Cat Couture was intended to be a few fun collaged pictures as mood boards to support my story and the cat muff notebook. However, once I had finished cutting and sticking, I couldn't bear not to swatch them (with some help from a very good friend) and put some thought into how to make them - so I changed my story to suit!

In answer to Roobeedoo's question, I have no idea how many things I might try to make from it yet - I have almost finished the first item and once that's done, I will write up the pattern. That is, assuming that Robynn doesn't burst out laughing when she's pictures of how it has turned out...

...after all, this was its tag line!

I soooo think that this will come back to haunt me! Please just remember when you are inspecting my work that the emphasis throughout has been on fun! It's likely to take a few days to sort out my words and pictures to bring you up to date, so please continue to bear with me!

Okay, I am here...

...I give in - I have arrived in the Land of Blog!

This blog is intended to chart the amateur ups and downs of my progress with Castle Cat Couture. Once I have got my head around this blogging thing, I will post some pictures to bring you up to speed with my work on it to date.

Yes, the person who collaged cats in knitwear, has a blog. It's a scary thought.

Ps. See my blog links - I've been following Roobeedoo's progress with her Cinderella stockings with great interest (while battling knitting design, technique, yarn and lifestyle envy)!

If there are other Purlescence storytellers out there with blogs that show progress to date on their competition projects (whether they won or not) and who would like me to include a link to their blog, please let me know where to find you!