Newborn Baby Hat

Newborn Baby Hat - with 2 different edgings
By Elisa Purnell

Copyright 2009

I created this hat for my local yarn shop's celebration of Knit (and Crochet) In Public Day. It's available as a free pattern for participants in the charity knitting/crocheting challenge to benefit Tender Life Maternity and Beanies4Buddies. If you use this pattern, please consider making a hat for charity too. (A printable pdf version of the pattern is available here.)

For both versions of the hat, work Rnds 1-6. Continue straight through for the picot trimmed hat (pictured above) or skip down for the shell edged version (pictured below).

Materials:

• Aran, worsted or light worsted weight yarn
• Size H hook

Gauge: 7 double crochet = 2”; 4 rows = 2”
Size: approx. 5" - 5.5" tall, and 5.25" - 5.75" across at the base.
Stitch Guide:

• Picot: chain 3, slip stitch in vertical bar and side bar of single crochet before chain 3.

Start here for both hats:
Chain 4, join with slip stitch in first chain to form ring.

Rnd 1:

• Chain 3, then make 15 double crochet inside ring.
• Join with slip stitch in top of beginning chain 3.

Rnd 2:

• Chain 3, double crochet in same stitch.
• * 1 double crochet in next double crochet , 2 double crochet in next double crochet ,
• repeat from * ending with 1 double crochet in last stitch. (24 stitches including chain 3)
• Join with a slip stitch in top of beginning chain 3.

Rnd 3:

• Repeat Rnd 2 (36 stitches including chain 3)

Rnds 4 - 6:

• Chain 3; double crochet in same stitch,
• Double crochet in each double crochet around,
• Join with a slip stitch in top of beginning chain 3. (Stitch count increases by 1 on each row.)

*** For Picot Edged Hat (pictured above) ***

Rnd 7: Working in Back Loop Only

• Chain 3; double crochet in same stitch,
• Double crochet in each double crochet around,
• Join with a slip stitch in top of beginning chain 3.

Rnd 8: Working in both loops

• Chain 3; double crochet in same stitch,
• Double crochet in each double crochet around,
• Join with a slip stitch in top of beginning chain 3.

Rnd 9 - 10:

• Repeat Rnd. 7 (working in back loop only)

Rnd 12:

• Chain 1; single crochet in same stitch
• *Single crochet in next 3 stitches
• Work Picot (see Stitch Guide above)
• Repeat from * around, ending with slip stitch in beginning chain 1. Fasten off.

*** For Shell Edged Hat: ***

Rnd 7- 10: Working in Back Loop Only

• Chain 3; double crochet in same stitch,
• Double crochet in each double crochet around,
• Join with a slip stitch in top of beginning chain 3.

Rnd 11: Still working in Back Loop Only

• Chain 3, 2 double crochet in same stitch,
• *Skip 2 double crochet, slip stitch in next double crochet,
• Skip 2 double crochet, 5 double crochet in next stitch,
• Repeat from * around, ending with 2 double crochet in same stitch as beginning chain 3. Fasten off.

Copyright 2009 by Elisa Purnell. This document is free for personal use and may be shared and distributed so long as it remains fully intact including this copyright notice, and no profit is made from its distribution or use. The pattern is intended for personal, charity or humanitarian use only. A lot of time and effort goes into producing patterns, even when they are “free”. Please respect the copyright.

Doors of Dublin

Our trip to Ireland had its ups and downs, but our hotel was definitely one of the high notes. Located right in the heart of Dublin, within easy walking distance of the major attractions - half a block from Merrion Square, Parliament, and four major museums - the Davenport was originally built in 1863. The exterior is ornate and stylish and the interior beautiful, with a 3-story skylight just inside the front door. Our room - was much bigger than I expected (European hotel rooms tend to be smaller than American rooms; sometimes much smaller) and everything was in pristine condition. I loved the huge crown molding around the ceiling; Dick loved the plasma TV, although we never got around to watching it.

Leprechaun alert: (we enjoyed the trip but everywhere we went, little things kept going wrong. Like little leprechauns were following us around, causing mischief.) We had the only room in the hotel where the wi-fi (and ethernet) wouldn't work, even after the helpful staff came up to assist. And we could never figure out how to turn on the air conditioner, only the heater. Fortunately, we had a window that opened to cool off our room.

Dublin residences are built like row houses, narrow, tall and almost identical. This row was about a block from our hotel, facing onto Merrion Square Park. So how do you tell one home from another? By the distinctive front doors, which are also one of the things for which Dublin is famous. Most are Georgian in style, with vivid colors and beautiful, often ornate, fanlights above. We saw doors in red, blue, green, black, purple, white, and more. So beautiful.

Bookworm

The towels are off the loom and in the dryer. I was going to post photos of them today but then Leia came for a visit and I couldn't resist taking a few shots of her in her new sweater. Ok, about 55 shots. But hey, I edited them down . . .

(click to enlarge)

Leia couldn't make up her mind which was more fascinating - the cat or the books. She'd reach for AJ, then get distracted and pick up a book. Then she'd remember the cat and repeat the cycle all over again. My favorite photo - shows both of them fascinated by a passing airplane. AJ was amazingly tolerant of little hands and Leia, so far, has been very gentle.

Sample This

The next step in the towel project was to roll on the warp threads and tie them to the front beam. I love how fresh and clean a new warp looks. So many possibilities, so much potential. In a first for me, I decided to weave a few inches with five different weft threads, cut the sample off the loom, wash it, dry it, and see what worked and what didn't.

The warp is brown 3/2 organic cotton (unmercerized). From bottom to top, the weft threads are: (the pink threads on the very bottom are waste yarn)

• 1) teal 8/2 cotton;
  
• 2) softball color-grown cotton (about a 2/2);
  
• 3) pink 10/2 linen;
  
• 4) brick-red cotton chenille (2500 yards/lb)
  
• 5) pink 10/5 linen (about twice as thick as the 10/2).

Pre-washing, the sample is about 14" tall by 14.5" wide - with big bulges where the chenille pulled in and the 10/5 linen pushed out.

Post-laundry, it's 11.5" tall by 14" wide and the difference between the linen and chenille is dramatically reduced. (18% shrinkage. Formula: Length 1 minus length 2 = difference; difference divided by length 1 = % shrinkage. Cause I'm a math bonehead and won't remember this next time.)
My plan is to weave 3 towels, each about 30" long on the loom. One will use the brick chenille - one will have the color-grown cotton (top sample) - and the third will be the teal 5/2 cotton. I'm setting the linen aside to use in another project.

I especially like three treadlings from the pattern gamp but I haven't decided whether I'll do one pattern per towel or a combination. Guess I'll let serendipity (and my interest/boredom level) decide.

Tying One On

Five warp chainsplus seven hours

and one special knotequals 240 new warp threads tied on and ready to weave.

I want to make a set of towels using the same threading as the pattern gamp I just finished. Rather than starting again from scratch, I tied the new warp on to the old one.

Looking back at how long it took to put the first warp on, I think I saved about three hours doing it this way. Plus, it's brainless and almost mistake proof. Now, on to weaving!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Laundry Rules

• If my clothes (or dad's) are in the dryer and you need to use it, you have 3 – and only 3 – options:

#1: Let me know, politely, that you need to use the dryer.

#2: Come back later when the dryer has been emptied.

#3: Neatly fold or hang up whatever is in the dryer.

You’ll notice that ‘dump everything in a heap on the counter’ is NOT an option.

• When you finish doing laundry, take your stuff upstairs and put it away. Do NOT leave it tossed/abandoned on the counter, floor, or anywhere else.

• If it has holes, doesn’t fit, or you don’t plan to use/wear it again, THROW IT AWAY, do not leave it to compost in a hamper or on the counter.

• Your assistance is sincerely appreciated. Or there’s a pay laundromat in town that will appreciate your business.
  

Your loving mother and landlord.

Think the boys will get the not-very-subtle hint? Nah, me neither.

FO!

I started this as a refresher before I taught the hexagon jacket class Wednesday night, not intending to do more than frog it when class was over. (pattern link)Loved the look and the feel of the yarn, so . . . . Leia has a new jacket, complete with little flower buttons. It's probably big on her now, but she'll grow into it soon, I'm sure.

Cake Recipe

I had a request for this recipe so thought I'd share it here. I got this from a co-worker back in the '80's, while I was still working as a dispatcher (a long, loooooong time ago.) It's been a family favorite ever since.

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cake

2 cups all purpose or unbleached flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/3 cup dairy sour cream
2/3 cup margarine or butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon (I use 1 tablespoon of cinnamon)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I usually double this)

• Heat oven to 350 F. Grease (not oil) 13 x 9" pan.
  
• In large bowl, blend first 9 ingredients at low speed until moistened. Beat 3 minutes at medium speed.
  
• Pour 1/2 of batter (about 2.5 cups) into prepared pan.
  
• In small bowl, combine 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon.
  
• Sprinkle 1/2 sugar mixture and 1/2 chocolate chips over batter.
  
• Repeat with remaining batter, sugar mix and chocolate chips.
  
• Bake at 350 F for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
  
• Cake tastes much better if you let it cool before eating. Enjoy!

Finished!

I finished weaving the pattern gamp last night; today I hand-hemmed the ends (I must really like this thing - I hate sewing), washed, dried and ironed it (see note above - hate ironing too) before setting up a photo session. AJ was sound asleep until she heard the click of the camera - she had to be in the center of every picture after that. I'm really pleased with how this project turned out. So many pretty patterns to replicate in towels or shawls. When I cut the pattern gamp off the loom, I was careful to leave the threads in the reed so I can tie on a new warp and weave another project. I think a set of four towels, using the same teal and violet 3/2 cotton for warp and a cream 8/2 cotton for weft. Should be interesting. Since I was photoing - and ironing - I took pix of the color gamp I started last July and finished this past Thursday, only because I needed the loom for the weekend workshop.I had a lot of broken warp threads and other frustrations with this project. Great as a learning experience; not so great for my irritation level. I wasn't that crazy about how this looks when I first washed it, but it's growing on me. I think I'd like to do another one using a firmer fiber - maybe pima cotton - so the colors don't fuzz into each other so much. How about that - I've got two weaving projects for Guild show-and-tell this week!

How I Spent My Weekend

aka "Why The Ireland Post Still Isn't Done"

I spent the weekend weaving a pattern gamp - or sampler - at SCIART. We started winding the warp (the long threads) Friday night, then spent all day Saturday threading the five different patterns onto the loom - two variations of Rosepath and M's & W's and an undulating twill (all in 3/2 perle cotton on an 8 dent reed, 2 threads per dent.)

This morning most of the seven students were ready to start the actual weaving - much to our amazement since we're all fairly new weavers and this was a pretty complicated pattern.
The purpose of the class was to see what the five threadings looked like with different treadlings (the order in which the four harnesses are raised) and with different color combinations. With five threadings, 12 treadlings and three different colors, you can imagine how many pattern/color variations we ended up with.

I came home from class tonight with seven patterns completed. The loom is set up in my studio and I'm planning to weave into the night. I want to have this 4-yard sampler woven and ready for Guild show-and-tell on Saturday - and I think I can actually accomplish that goal. Can't wait to see what this looks like off the loom.

Flowers of Ireland

Taking photos of flowers is one of my favorite things to do on our trips. I say it's for Carolyn (hi, Carolyn!) but it's also because I love the colors and textures, and the challenge of seeing if I can get a new angle or spectacular shot.

The good thing about Spring vacations is that you see lots and lots of flowers. The bad thing is that you often get rained on. And in Dublin we did both. The parks - St. Stephen's Green and Merrion Square, with its beautiful Georgian buildings in the background - were two of the most gorgeous public spaces we've ever seen. Maybe they were at their very best because it was Easter weekend, but both were impeccably groomed, with riotous banks of color everywhere. Enjoy! (if you click the four-arrows icon in the slideshow below, the photos become full-screen sized. Better to see the rain drops on petals.)

Travel Time

Traveling to and from Ireland was interesting (as in, "May you live in interesting times", the Chinese curse/blessing). One good thing about the enroute travel delays - the 2 hours we arrived early at LAX for the flight, plus 2 hours for the weather delay, plus 3 hours for the engine malfunction, in addition to the 5+ hour flight; then 5 hours the next day sitting in the airport at JFK, plus the 6+ hour flight to Dublin - was that I got a lot of knitting and crocheting done.

I finished the One Row Lace Cowl (Rav link; non-Ravelry pattern link) in the first two hours. I took Gigi's advice and didn't join the rounds until the fourth row (so I could tell top from bottom and to add a bit of flare.) The yarn is leftover from Rachel's Friendship Mittens; it's much prettier than this cell phone pic shows.

I finished joining the sleeve and underarm on the first sleeve on the Cozy Jacket (can you see the four knitting needles in this picture? One set for the underarm stitches and another set for the 'live' stitches of the sleeve). Decided I wanted to keep both sleeves at about the same point, so I transferred the first sleeve onto waste yarn, picked up stitches for the second sleeve and underarm, and started working on them. I only knit while we were travelling (not while we were in Ireland) and I still got the second sleeve past the joining and into the decrease section before we arrived back home. So maybe I should thank Delta for the flight delays? Nah, not going to happen.

Another thing I'm not going to thank them for is killing my beloved purple suitcase. I've used this case for many trips and although it was scuffed, it was holding up well. Until it met the baggage handlers at Delta. The hard plastic inside the case was completely crushed and the fabric ripped away. Fortunately, nothing fell out (unlike the suitcase we saw at LAX with the top ripped off and some poor woman's clothes and hair dryer tossed all over the baggage carousel) but it was definitely not usable for the trip home. We went shopping in Dublin for a replacement and I was going with the cheapest thing I could find . . . until I saw this - Isn't it fabulous?? And easy to pick out at baggage claim. Bet I'll never see it's twin on any of our trips.

Hi From Ireland

Things are looking up. We've seen some amazing sites - check out Newgrange, which is our favorite by far. Finally got my corned beef and cabbage today and it was wonderful. No Internet connectivity in our hotel room (yet; they're working on it) so posting is sparse. We're having a great time but starting to look forward to being home.

Not having fun yet

Arrived at LAX at 6:00 a.m. for an 8:00 flight. JFK in New York had a weather delay- I thought a little rain only shut down Los Angeles - that pushed our flight back to 9:50. Then they tell us they just found a "little leak" in one of our plane's engines. Yeah. After sitting at LAX for 6 freakin' hours, we finally left for New York just after noon.

Want to guess if we made our connection to Dublin at 7:25? Of course not. After standing in at least 4 separate lines over the course of 2 hours, we finally got a hotel voucher (thanks to the passengers ahead of us in line who successfully argued that we really did have an equipment problem, not an 'act of God weather delay'.) It's 12:30 A.M. in New York and we're sitting the bar of a Ramada Inn, waiting for our dinner to arrive.

We're scheduled out on another flight tomorrow night at 7:25. An entire day wasted on a 7-day trip. Sure hope things get better from here.

But it could be a lot worse. We could be the woman next to us in the 'help me' line with 15-month-old twins!

For Rachel

If this works, I can't think of a better way to leave this while we're gone. (I've been trying to upload this for 2 hours . . . . .)

Leia has been trying desperately to crawl - or better yet, walk - for the past week or so. She wants to be one of the big kids very badly. Enjoy!

Almost Easter

Today Dick and Matt - without adultfemale assistance - took the three grandkids to an Easter celebration in Thousand Oaks. With Leia looking on from the shade of her stroller, Naia and Miles went horseback riding - played on several different Jolly Jumps - got their faces painted - searched for Easter eggs - and got their pictures taken with the guest of honor. Dick said the event was very well organized, with lots of activities for the various age groups and almost no lines or waits.

I think Dick had as much fun as the kids did. And it was a great opportunity to try out his new camera before our big trip. I think the camera - and grandpa - did just fine.

Spin Day

It's been awhile since I've done much spinning. When I have some craft time I tend to break out the crochet or knitting. I need to change that habit, especially since I really enjoy spinning once I sit down to it.

Several of the Anacapa Spinsters - my usually-on-Thursday-night spinning group - got together for lunch and a spin-in at Ginny's house (thank you, Ginny!) Susie brought angora bunny fur to share and demonstrated how to spin it by itself - fast whirl, lots of twist, not much tension - and carded with Merino wool. Her angora/wool mittens and all-angora socks were soft, silky and warm. Plain angora wants to be spun thin - think thread; the wool/angora mix was much easier to control and spin at a more usable thickness. By the end of the day, I had about half a bobbin of angora, wool/angora and alpaca/silk (stunningly gorgeous stuff) that Susie had carded for us to spin. Now I need to find something to ply with it so I can see what this looks like crocheted or knit up.

Next month? Spinning mohair!