Hello, my darlings–

I write to you from a place of sleep deprivation. It is 8:40am, and I have yet to sleep. This isn’t entirely unheard of in my house, but the cycle needs to end! I’ve tried before to stay up as long as I could, in order to crash at a reasonable time. Alas, it always fails me. My body seems to want to make up for the deprivation by sleeping 10-14 hours. Shameful, body, shameful.

Last night I finished a project that was not my own when I started. I changed the yarn, likely the gauge, the length, the colors, and added a pin, but I did go into it with plans to follow someone elses pattern. What does that leave me? Is it far enough removed that I can call it my own? I don’t know. That’s a murky place we could go into, so I’ll leave it at: I intended to crochet someone elses pattern, changing only the yarn, but then my crochet-ADD took me to other places.

The intent was still there, though.

So, one of the mufflers from the muffler set in Donna Kooler’s Encyclopedia of Crochet, designed by Shelley Carda, became:

You will hear me talk about crocheting a part of this in the new podcast that is coming soon. Until then, however, I will sleep. Not the entire time, but a good portion of it, and I’ll have you know…Zzzzzzzzzzz

The hat to match the bag is COMPLETE. Because it’s not worked in the round I had to find a seam that was neither glaringly obvious or ugly. I settled on a two-step process that is, unfortunately, still visible, but not ugly and mimics the look of the hat enough that it blends in just enough. I’m sure there will be a better option discovered in the future, but for now it fits both design and need.

The only thing–things, I should say–left to do is to insert the support bottom of the purse to keep it sturdy, and line the bag. Baby-Sister-in-Law will model for photographs, and during all of this, I’ll be writing up the pattern for a couple of testers. If all goes well–when all goes well, that is–it will be up for sale. It’s an intermediate (possible intermediate-advanced) project, I would say. Lots of tunisian knit stitch, shaping, a few treble post stitches, reverse single crochet edgings, and a tunisian seam and chaining. Good fun, really!

This hat starts out just like the tunisian swatch I posted here. The body is worked in BLO, followed by a brim with linked/tunisian stitches.

Worsted weight yarn, H-hook, and some patience. At one point I had to frog and start over because I attempted to decrease where the pinwheel edges hung out. This made it pucker, obviously, and it looked like shit. So I decided to work with it and let it swirl however it wanted.

I really wish I had someone local for TG (the girlfriend) to take photos of this on. Someone who actually looks good in hats, as I don’t. She’s not fond of being in front of the camera, as a photographer often isn’t, so I won’t ask her. I’d wait for her sister to come back over, but that’s not until the end of this month and I want this pattern written and tested before then.

This is the third hat in a trilogy I created for Frances Mai-Ling. She coordinated a website and event where these hats will be sold, combined with a CD of hers, a scarf, and other things. 100% of the proceeds will be given to the American Heart Association (AHA).

This was crocheted in a bulky, size 5, weight yarn. The brass buckle was recycled from a belt, as was the piece that the crocheted-belt is slid through. The brass plays well against the red of the yarn.