Caput Helianthus, Jeff Goldblum, and the Multi-Generational Blanket

There was triumph and creative energy. There were misplaced yarn-overs and gnashing of teeth, but here I am, at the end of July with a completed caput helianthus (code name: Blue Stardust Sunflower Hat). ON TIME. How about that?

I started out a little worried. The pattern ended up a lot more intricate than I originally thought that it would be. Though the individual rows had, essentially, a new repeat each time, the repeats were easy to memorize. However, they took a fair bit of maneuvering to accomplish, with knits and purls and yarn overs and knit into the back loops all over the place. It took several days just to get the cast on straightened out and lengthened to a respectable size. It was a top-down pattern, meaning the cast-on was only a few stitches that then had to be manipulated on double-pointed needles without twisting them to form a Mobius strip instead of a circle.

Because it was a hat and a lace hat at that, I didn't swatch, figuring a swatch really wouldn't tell me a whole lot anyway. I was worried that the hat would end up to0 small as I was knitting it (I'm a bit of a tight knitter), but when I bound off, it was the exact size of a small stocking cap. Though this meant it was not slouchy like the pictures, I was content that it would be wearable. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first finished object I've made that was mostly wool (the RH sock yarn is wool with a small amount of nylon). Thus, for the first time, my project required blocking to look "right." At the time of bind off, the  stitch pattern of the hat was sort of bunchy and the leaf-like portions overlapped each other just a little bit, which was not the case in the pictures either.

I plopped the hat into the bathtub in warm water and it just sort of bloomed. That's the word I would use to describe it. The yarn overs expanded in size and the hat with them. After I took it out of the tub (with care), Irolled it up in a fluffy towel to release excess moisture. Then I found a plate 10 inches in diameter and placed it on top of a smaller than 10 inch diameter bowl. The hat went over the plate so that its center sunflower filled the center of the plate exactly. That's where it remained until it dried out completely. The plate did it's work and the hat took on that flat-topped look just a little bit, providing a nice slouch. There was just one problem, the brim of the hat also bloomed, so that instead of hugging the head, it was wider than a head. It still worked as a hat, but lacked some of its former stability. This means that while it has a great slouch to it, the hat is a little precarious in how it sits on a head.

I pondered the impact of this development as my BFF/identical cousin Kristin made the drive from my hometown to Cleveland this weekend past to celebrate her birthday. The hat is her birthday gift this year. Over the course of the winter, she's picked up crochet and so, appreciates entirely the effort that goes into a handmade gift, especially a lacey one. Her trip kicked off with the big hat reveal.

The loose brim means that it will never give her hat hair, so she thinks it will all work out. If not, I have leftover yarn I can use to make a cord that can be pulled through the bottom brim eyelets and pulled snug.

We also feasted on carrot cake my hubby made to celebrate Kristin's birth + 28 years, visited the local zoo, and watched Jeff Goldblum movies from the mid-90s. We have a thing for Jeff Goldblum. And carrot cake.

While watching Jeff be the science nerd he always seems to be, we both crocheted. She's working on a scarf for her mother, and I, a blanket. It was the blanket sitting unfinished by the usual chair of my husband's grandmother after she passed away. I've figured out the pattern repeats (a varying number of double crochets) and started the process of taking the not-yet-half-a-skein-of-yarn-used-up blanket into a two-skeins-long blanket. It's a fun little pattern, and I like looking at where her stitches become mine. I didn't get the chance to know her very well in the short time I was with her grandson before she died. I feel like we're bonding in our own crafty way, across time, across dimensions, with our one crochet hook and four hands.

My advice to anyone who crafts: leave behind a partially-completed project if you can and make sure you have a loved one you've taught how to finish it.

Yarn Stash Realization

My life is returning to a routine schedule. One where all of my free time isn't eaten up by thesis revisions, wedding plans, or weekly trips to Michigan. What this means: some time freed up to dedicate to reorganizing my stash.

My stash, who I am affectionately referring to as the "Acrylic Nightmare," has been in a pretty constant state of disrepair since thesis hours started in 2011. I have been adding to it but not subtracting. I have been incapable of turning down sales, clearances, and markdowns. I have purchased cheaply regardless of fiber content in a poor graduate student attempt to ensure my future ability to make something (even a less than ideal something) with yarn and sticks. I have overfilled the cedar trunk that housed the Acrylic Nightmare and desperately found empty boxes and totes in which to throw skeins, making sure to leave a cedar-protected place in the trunk for those few yarny purchases I have made with even a percentage of nonsynthetic content. I'm still not entirely sure where all that Red Yarn Super Saver came from. (I assume it was for amigurumi, as good yarn need not be utilized in the making of toddler and pet toys. They will not last long anyway.)

I found every box, every tote, and emptied all my yarn onto the living room rug. Then they were sorted by weight and fiber content, photographed, and put up in my ravelry notebook online. Then, the yarn I really love went into the cedar chest, the super saver went into a milk crate, and the rest ended up in a plastic tote that now resides in the bottom of my tiny bedroom closet. By the end of the ordeal, ravelry told me I have 73 separate entries in my stash (this counts two balls of the same dye lot as 1 entry), so I likely broke 100 balls of yarn. I did not count them individually. I didn't have the heart... or maybe the fearlessness. My husband took one look at that pile of fiber and laughed himself near tears. I apparently can never again pick on him for repurchasing the same book twice because he forgot he already had it. In the guy universe, this much yarn is just so much worse. I would argue, but I have six skeins of a marled pink bulky acrylic that equals over 2500 yards total. I can't say rightly what I was thinking there other than providing blankets to all baby girls born into the family within the next five years. Maybe ten.

I proclaimed myself on a yarn diet and then promptly purchased two skeins of RH stardust in the blue colorway. In my defense, it's for my cousin Kristin's birthday present and she picked the yarn. I'm making her a Caput Helianthus hat (pattern by Sara Morris at Rose City Knits). This is the pattern I won in the Hogwarts at Ravelry cupcake contest with my Raven Clawcakes recipe. I'm trying to work hard on it, as it needs to be done by the end of July.

But this is my vow: I will de-stash some of this stuff. No more new yarn until I've used up some of the old. By the next knitting blog, I hope to be if not done with the CH hat, then at least near completion. More than that, I hope to match up patterns I already own to some of yarn in the stash. If it happens to be some of that massive amount of acrylic, all the better.