Thursday, 16 January 2014

A hat called kitty-hat

showing off my new skill of crochet.....this hat was my first real go and i've made 3 now. one for me, one for the Niecelet and the one in the pictures below:

No.3 kitty- hat finished
          Done in a 10ply i think with colour added by an additional carrying thread in 2 ply

hat as worn


lady in hat looking at a lady in hat 





































































































































                                                      The back view all rolled down.

My 1st version of the hat isn't quite finished as i can't decide about the trailing threads - do i embellish the surface with spirals or just hide them?
The pattern i used started out on rows 1 to 8 from a book, and they said "chunky" yarn. I thought 10ply was chunky, but it quickly became obvious that it isn't, so i just crocheted on until it fitted by adding increases after about the 8th row as an experiment and it seems to have worked! I can't follow a recipe and it looks like i can't follow a pattern either!

Next exciting installment will be the random increase/decrease flip-top mitts i did by the same method....... and after that there is the really wonky lava & lichen strip (not a scarf, guys, i don't wear scarves!).

CREDITS:
while i have attempted crochet a number of times in the last few years nothing has stuck. Linda tried with hyperbolic crochet and it was good but failed to stick in my mind; i tried a tute at a craft show with Nikki - didn't stick.........but THANKS to Amazing Anna i'm off and running (starting on a JUMPER for my next project!!)
ali

Thursday, 9 January 2014

HRAUN BITAR = BERSERKJAHRAUN

                   A little bitty corner of Snæfellsnes:

If you take a small detour off road 54 you end up in the most magical place. Here are some photos to get started with.....





The lava is pretty new as you can see from a google earth image (just type in Berserkjahraun) and the cones are lovely and fresh too! The beautiful red plants are the ever present blue berries, which were a bit over their prime by this time (i was there in October).

Hraun bitar are very tasty little choclatey-coconutty-biscuity things. more on them later, but i translate them as LAVA BITES and they are yuuuummmmyyy.





It looks like i got the horizon wrong here but i didn't, it's just the weird lay of the land. The colours are what is really important of course.



The vegetation crawls up the slopes and looks like flames.






I was there on a typical overcast day, and sadly right in the middle of the day as it takes a couple of hours from reykjavik to get there, and of course there are too many wonderful things to see on the way.......so the light was not great and the sky was as flat a grey as could be and i recon it was a toasty 5 degrees............this is the road that you drive around on and my little hire car was just fine.

                                          i'm going back - anyone wanna join me?