Happy Holidays from my Thansgiving cactus.
P.S. I did break down and buy fresh eggs for the holiday baking. Powdered eggs are great for pancakes and quick breads, not as nice for pie crust or pie filling. Shh, don’t tell the hens.
Happy Holidays
Author: Caryn
Testing the hook
Rather than send an untested tool off to my Mom, I tested my newly made S hook on a third skein of yarn. What to make? Well a hat, of course. I love making hats because they go fast and I have the pattern memorized. It took me a few goes to get the hat started; the yarn and the hook are so big, I was getting lost in the holes. I’m not quite sure I agree with the “S” size designation on the label. With a double crochet stitch, such as I use in my hats, it leaves quite large holes.
But the hat was really comfortable and a good size. What do do? Maybe a decorative stitch? Sure. I took some more yarn from the skein and did a simple chain stitch through the mesh, starting at the top and spiraling down to the brim. I needed to add a few chains to the crown as I went around, so as not to tighten the hat, but it did a great job filling in all the holes. It did however, use the rest of the skein of yarn. The resulting hat is quite floofy, but much warmer.
I did all the testing of the hook prior to finishing, in case I needed adjustments. It wows me that the hat took a whole skein of yarn. If it doesn’t work as a hat, the cats will probably love it as a bed.
Really big hook
I found some lush purple yarn at the store that I thought my Mom would love, but it needed an S hook. Wha…? An S size crochet hook is 19mm in diameter below the neck, which is a very large hook, not quite to broomstick handle size (which is 1 inch or 25.4 mm), but still quite sizable. Hm. A hand made crochet hook would go well with gifted yarn, yes? I selected a nice length of big leaf maple wood from my hoard and turned it on my lathe. When it was a pleasing shape, and the neck and head were the right diameter, I removed it from the lathe, trimmed the ends, and cut in the hook. I found that a wooden nål, with its tapered tip, makes a really excellent sanding block to shape the hook. I worked mostly with 120 grit sandpaper to get the shape, then refined with 220, then 320, then 400 grit.
I used acrylic paints to write the name of the wood and put the “S” designation on the end, then sealed the wood with many layers of tung oil.
Another month
I have to be another month in the dreaded boot to let my achilles tendon heal. I have gone through several garbage bags, using them to protect the boot when I go in the coop, and found that the pine shavings bags are thicker, more durable plastic, and also are the perfect size to wrap around the boot. I just have to thoroughly shake out the leftover shavings and check for holes. The chickens aren’t as afraid of this as well. Bonus.
Tessellated Möbius scarf
I made an infinity scarf with my hand spun alpaca sari silk yarn and my tessellated Möbius pattern! I meant for it to be able to slip over the shoulders, but as the pattern progressed, it tightened up considerably. If I make another I think I will add about 10-20% to the base row. After I wove in the ends, I wetted it down and laid it out to dry (blocking), which opened up and evened out the lovely hole pattern.
