Eight Random Things!

Rules: 1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves. 2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules. 3. At the end of your blog you need to tag 8 people and post their names. 4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

• I am perfectly ordinary.
  
• Sunshine really and truly does lift my mood.
  
• I like to start each day with tea and hot buttered toast.
  
• I do not read enough, so I feel very badly informed.
  
• I am drawn to water, I find it very calming.
  
• I love flowers. I particularly like scented garden roses - their smell, intensity of colour and careless abundant blooms. Not stiff starchy, no-smell florist ones.
  
• My favourite colour varies according to my mood - sometimes it is the pinks - purples colour range that draws me, at other times it is deep burgundy reds-plums. However, at other times I head straight and unerringly towards blues, teals, turquoise and greens.
  
• My brother once gave me a pet log.

I do not have anyone to tag, who has not been tagged already! So if you read this and would like to join in - please do!

I have been offline for a while, hence the silence, busy doing Other Things. I have finished the CCC hat but I am waiting for a specific kind of pin to arrive in order to finish it off - I have worked out what the knitted accessory needs to be but I want to gather together all the components I need before I start putting it together. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, Dee (Posh Yarns) has dyed some yarn for my next CCC project - I am very very excited about it! Pictures of some 4-Ply cashmere and silk coming very soon!

CCC Hat - still working on it!

I have reworked the hat (Hat Mark 2), drafted the pattern ready to send over to Robynn and taken photos of family and friends modelling (larking about in) both versions! I'm not quite ready to show you pictures as I still need to tweak the pattern. Hat Mark 2 is definitely a hat but it seems to have a slight 'nipple' at its tip which I need to sort out. Actually, I quite like it as it gives the top of the hat some character but I suspect that hat purists will feel that it is a fault in its design!

Robynn has seen a preview picture (of some friends' children trying it on a week ago) and suggested that I create an optional knitted accessory for it. I am happy to oblige but the photos that I have taken so far don't include one!

In the meantime, for your post Easter viewing pleasure see left for a photo of a family member in oversized Hat Mark 1!

Please bear in mind that I didn't bother to do any finishing on this hat which accounts for its lack of shape and possibly, the odd end dangling down - trust me, she is sooooo going to kill me for posting this!

CCC Hat - The First Attempt

Although it had a promising start, it is fair to say that my first hat attempt was not successful!

You see, I did not follow any of the usual rules:

Rule 1 - Make Notes: I knitted the swatches for the hat in bed at about 2am. Well, trust me - it all made absolute and perfect sense then! Oh, there's no need for me to make notes - I'll remember exactly how I did this later...

...oh yeah, right - ho, ho ho! Robynn still had my entry when my yarn arrived. Did I wait until I got it back to look at my samples and annotations? Did I heck! I was so enthusiastic about making a start that I found myself peering at the photos of the hat page on the Purlescence website (honestly), trying to make out my notes and the needle size I needed...yes, bonkers!

Rule 2 - Read the Ball Band / Make a Swatch: despite being separated from my swatches, I convinced myself very solemnly that I didn't need to knit more - and why would I need to refresh my memory by looking at a ball band?

Both of the above two points might help explain why I cast on with the wrong sized needles, couldn't remember the shaping instructions that I'd thought out nor remember which type of increase I'd chosen, leading to 1.5 rounds of little holes!

Rule 3 - Check Gauge / Do the maths: This is really where the gung-ho demon dug in its talons and urged me to get cracking! Did I check gauge, did I do any maths? Nope, skipped this bit - completely. I did a random check of a simple DK hat pattern to see what sort of ballpark Ineeded for the cast on and set off with my yarn and needles, spirits very high...

..kept going...

end of ball one (how exciting, must take photos!)

...kept going...

end of ball two (hmm, no end in sight)

...kept going...

halfway through ball three (good grief, still not finished)

...Just stop!

What needles am I using? How many stitches did I cast on?

Oh. Okay. That might explain why this is a three ball hat.

At that point, I tried it on and texted a picture to a friend:

Text Caption: "I am not sure that this is what Robynn had in mind!"

It's okay, I did incorporate all necessary adjustments into Hat Mark 2...

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!