I’ve always got several crochet projects on the go and enjoy testing new patterns for designers prior to their release. This hat, the Borealis Hat is by Lisa Naskrent of The Crochet Garden and now that it has been released, I can share it here. It’s a fun design worked in horizontal rounds from the top down, with a clever construction that results in vertical stripes.
My main colour is beige and I chose a different colour for each contrasting row, which did mean a lot of ends to weave in, but I think it’s totally worth it for the finished result. I’m looking forward to trying this again with one of my hand painted yarns.
I tested another hat pattern by the same designer, the Overlay Hat, which uses textured post stitches to create an interesting swirl effect.
I used my own yarn for this one, Dolly Tweed in Dusty Cherry (not sure it’s Adrian’s colour!). It’s is a DK weight yarn, but actually I found it to be on the thick side, almost an aran weight. It takes dye in an interesting way as two strands of the three ply yarn are non superwash merino and one strand is superwash, which means the dye uptake is slightly more intense on the superwash strand, which results in a striped yarn and a tweedy looking fabric.
I had a little left over so I used it to make a Squish Bear. I don’t often make toys, but thought I’d try making this very simple bear from a pattern in Simply Crochet magazine (issue 89). It’s so straight forward I’ve now made four of them, the first two went off to my nieces and these two will come along to a couple of fairs I’m doing before Christmas.
You can find more of my crochet projects on my Ravelry page and don’t forget to check out my Etsy shop for interesting yarn.