Colourful Christmas stockings

I started making three of these colourful Christmas stockings to hold small additional gifts for the grandchildren. When the first white one was nearly finished and the other two were about half done, I realised that they were coming out a lot larger than I expected. Fortunately it wasn’t difficult to modify the pattern to make smaller versions which came out just the right size for some chocolate “gold” coins, a Kinder Santa and a small toy or other small packet of sweets. The red and blue stockings have been posted off to the grandchildren and I will keep the big one to put some chocolates in as a present to myself and G. :) In the New Year I will frog (ie unravel) the other two part done white stockings and reuse the yarn, probably as tea cosies, of which I could do with a couple more.

A whimsical witch hat for Halloween

I'd spotted this Whimsical Witch-Hat pattern on Ravelry

Here's my version...

To be honest, I ended up using the pattern more as a guideline than something to follow exactly. This was because the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, which I don’t use and which isn’t that common in the UK. Also, I wanted to use up my stash of double knitting left over from various blankets and other projects. As I didn’t want to buy new yarn for what is, after all, just a silly dressing up hat, I used the pattern as a starting point and then just winged it.

I am, however, delighted with the result as it’s very similar to the hat my avatar wears in Habitica.

It even sort of suits me. :)

I’m now planning to make another one in black.

I have been sadly negelecting this blog

It's been a long time since I updated this blog, but it has not been forgotten or abandoned. Unfortunately, I haven't been doing much crochet over the past 6 months due to getting more teaching hours at the local college and I haven't had a moment to blog what I have been working on. However, I did crochet a poncho out of some nice soft acrylic aran yarn that had been sitting around for absolutely ages waiting for the right project. It keeps me warm whilst sitting working at the computer. My latest project though is -- shock! horror! -- knitting! The yarn is Sirdar Montana and I love the way the colours change. I have knitted a few scarves and hats in recent years but only ever once in my life finished a sweater and that was an awful long time ago. I actually bought this yarn to crochet a hooded sleeveless cardigan in Tunisian crochet, but then decided that that would be too ambitious and I needed more practice at making smaller things in Tunisian crochet first. As I do need more sweaters, I decided to see if I could actually knit one. The back is now almost complete and, so far, it's looking good!