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

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?

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 

To all our lovely readers 
At this time of the year excess and sadness often overwhelms us. 
Take heart the simple message of Christmas is about hope, a magnificent gift and relationships.
bintfaden is all about relationships and the lives we share.

Chilli's from the garden with bay leaves looked very festive to us!!

Ali and Rhonda

Ísland 2013   við fórum til Ljotipolls og ég sá þetta......

which hopefully is a rough translation of: we went to Ljotipollur and this is what i saw....

it has been a bit of a while since the last post, but here we go. These images are from the autumn adventure tour i was part of in sept 2013. (thank you Skarpi!). Apparently the crater was not showing it's stunning red colours, but i wasn't missing them! these shots were taken in the mid morning, after a bit of snow the day before.....
(takk fyrrir, Christine for help with the icelandic)

 Ljotipollur = uglypool (but it isn't! it's beautiful!)
in Fjallabak Reserve

                                                             view from the top the crater, generally to the west

                                          bit of a sloppy horizon here, but you get the idea...colour and pattern are distracting!

                                                 i wish i'd taken 100 photos now

                                        this one is actually the crater next door, but i can't remember its name at the moment

i'll do a bit of work on the rest of the photos and continue to post them here. (and i have set up a flickr spot that i'll direct you to as well when i master the process there). We had a wonderful time for an hour just before we got to this spot as the sun was rising over the mountains and light beams hit isolated spots.

A cake for Rae & Damien

I had Rae & Damien involved in making the flannel flowers and other bits and pieces for their cake. Rae dressed the little gumnut babies. Greta also came over for some flower-making fun (her work is always gorgeous!). i know who made which flowers.........

a bit of a close-up of some of the lovely blossoms

and another view giving an overall idea. There is a sad tale about the wrong cake order but it's neither here nor there now.....

oohh aahh something wonderful

i was watching my favourite webcam (Mila) when i caught this truly amazing and wonderful dawn and sunrise over Hekla....i hope someone else was watching as well

i'm not thinking that the colours have come out quite as vivid as they were, but that's snipping for you.......or maybe the white frame effect. i'll look into some formatting maybe

Ali in the mallee

I've been out in the middle of South Australia doing some work. it's at the western margins of the mallee where it turns into the desert. lots of lovely long sinuous sand dunes, lots of lovely prickly spinifex growing on the dunes and lots of these cute l'il fellas:

This prickly one is a thorny devil. About 8cm long. and prickly and tickly when you hold them.
he looks grumpy but they are quite slow and placid really. i caught it easily by just leaning over and picking it up and he wasn't too distressed about being held.

not well camouflaged on the sand but very much harder to spot when in leaf litter.... the grumpy expression is a killer!