Vertical Stripes in the Round

Horizontal stripes are awesome...

I have been wanting to do vertical stripes on a beanie for a while now. Horizontal stripes are great (and popular), but... they aren't the be all and end all of stripes! So, I tried changing the stripes in the row (massive fail) and I tried making the hat vertically, rather than in the round (sort of worked, but I wasn't a fan of the top of the hat). Then I gave up for a bit.

But... vertical stripes have edge!

But! I stumbled across an afghan pattern done in a shell stitch and my brain said "hey! turn that thing on its side!" and presto! an idea was born. I worked up a quick black and hot pink number last night to test it and I think it's safe to say you can expect more vertical stripes in the future from Baby Hooked Boutique!

It was actually pretty simple. I worked the hat in the round, like normal and alternated colors each round, just like with horizontal stripes, but used a shell stitch instead of a standard double or single crochet and voila! stripes on a beanie.

Scatter Crafting

If you're anything like me, you have several projects going at once and about a hundred ideas popping around your head for more. No? Doesn't sound familiar at all? I'm going to assume you're lying. Easy to do considering, I can't hear you right now :)

Back to my point. I'm really good at coming up with ideas for crafts (either for gifts, or Baby Hooked Boutique, or for *gasp* me). I'm OK at planning them out enough to buy yarn. I'm terrible at actually finishing a project that takes longer than 2 hours. The proof would be in the 2 unfinished Star Blankets sitting in the bottom of my yarn bin, that were supposed to be Christmas gifts for my nieces (or the rhino hat sitting on top of it, which was for my oldest nephew).

So, the goal for 2012? Get organized. Get better at follow through. Finish blankets before the girls start school!

Cotton and Bamboo and Wool! Oh, my!

It is so easy to get into the acrylic rut when yarn crafting. I mean, acrylic is readily available, comes in a huge assortment of colors, and textures and weights, oh and it's cheap. Relatively. But, it's also plastic, and doesn't wash very well (it gets rougher with each wash, unlike natural fibers, which get softer), and it pills, and well, it often looks like plastic.

Bright & Colorful! This is a great use for acrylic.

Don't get me wrong, a fair bit of the yarn in my stash is acrylic. You really can't beat it for color selection and a lot of what I make is photo props for newborn/baby portrait sessions which means color is the deciding factor. Well, obviously soft matters, too, but realistically, the baby will be wearing it for minutes, so color is more important. So, I do use acrylic yarn for those pieces more often than not.

Bamboo hat? Yes, please!

But, when it comes to making daily wear items (hats and sweaters especially), I like to branch out into different materials. There are so many materials that can be used for knit & crochet! My newest obsession favorite is bamboo. Bamboo is soft, and silky and luxurious. It's nearly weightless, but it's still warm. The fabric created with bamboo yarns have a terrific drape and softness like you wouldn't believe. The downside to is that the yarn is very fine (the one I've been working with is a fingering weight), so unless you double the strands and make a thicker material, it is kind of time consuming to work with. Also, it's silky, so you'll want to use a less slick (read not aluminum) hook/needle. Bamboo is one of the most renewable resources on the planet, so you can feel good about the eco-friendliness of your new bamboo wearables.

This crown is made from doubled bamboo. So soft.

Denim yarn is so fun!

Another great natural plant fiber, is cotton, of course! It is easy to find USA grown cotton, if you're really wanting to support the American economy and cotton is also a pretty eco-friendly material. There are lots of organic cottons available, too, that boost the eco-friendliness factor. It's very durable, so it makes great jackets. Cotton is awesome because it gets softer with every wash, and it develops character over time. The downside to cotton is its weight. A 100% cotton sweater made from worsted weight yarn is HEAVY! All that weight can cause the garment to lose its shape over time. Cotton has a matte/natural looking finish, rather than a silky/smooth finish. The color selection isn't nearly as good as the acrylic's, but there is a terrific variety readily available at any store that sells yarn. The coolest cotton yarn? Denim! That's right, knit your baby real blue jeans!

No need to fear the cold when you're wearing
wool on your noggin!

When it comes to warmth, though, you're still hard pressed to find something that beats good old fashioned wool. There are so many varieties of wool available now, from Alpaca to Merino to Cashmere and even wool blends, chances are really good that you can find anything you need in wool. Personally, I have a lanolin allergy, so I have to super careful when it comes to wool. Baby Alpaca and wool blends work really well for me and they are so soft. Gone are the days of itchy, scratchy, rough wool sweaters! Another cool wool trick is to buy plain white fisherman's wool and dye it yourself. Wool holds color a lot better than most plant fibers, and acrylic is just un-dye-able (look who's making up words!). Can't beat that for color control and availability!


So, while I'd never tell you to dump your acrylic completely, I would strongly encourage you to give some new fibers a try, too! A bamboo sweater or a cotton jacket, anyone?