New Month

Hello:
It's a new month so that means new class prompts in the Harry Potter Knitting Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC) Group on Ravelry.

The last few days of each month are always crazy in the House Cup.  I had all 8 classes finished with 3 days to spare, when I got a great idea for a different project for one of the classes I hadn't turned in yet.  For Magical Menagerie (the classes in September were based on shops in Diagon Alley), you could either make something to help care for your magical pet, or make a magical pet.  I had finished 4 hats and a crocheted cowl that I hadn't turned in yet.  I planned to turn them all in, except perhaps one, to Potage's Cauldron Shop.  The prompt there was to choose a cauldron, and craft something that had the cauldron's traits.  My hats and cowl were all easy beginner projects, so fit the Pewter Cauldron.  Then I thought I would turn in 1 hat as a bag for a toad, or some other silly pet thing, to the Magical Menagerie.  But, Saturday night, I got this great idea to hook a hippo.

I bought this great pattern last summer to make a hippo out of crocheted shapes, like pentagons, hexagons, octagons, etc.  It is such a clever bit of geometric engineering, I just had to get the pattern.  I was using worsted weight yarn, though the pattern calls for fingering weight, so my hippo was going to be fairly big.  I just couldn't get it finished on time.  It had to be submitted to a class by midnight, Pacific Time, on Monday, September 30.  Ugh!!  I finished all but the head.  No good photos, though, so I can't show you what it looks like until tomorrow.

It made me a crazy person all day Sunday and Monday, though.  All I did was make these little pentagons, etc.  I mean it.  It was all I did.  We had pizza for dinner.  I could tell the Doc thought I was insane.  And then I didn't finish in time.  But, I still can turn it in for a Quidditch project, thank goodness, because all of that work should count for something!

What did I finish up in those last few days?

I finished my Hidden Hearts Socks by Jeannie Cartmel, in SweetGeorgia Yarns Tough Love Sock in Boysenberry.

I am not sure I like the heels.  They have a short row heel.  That isn't really the problem.  It's the lace that is at the top of the heel.  The heels seem rather short on top, and this puts lace in a place where it will rub inside the heel of the shoe.  I like my heels taller.  There is no pulling on these socks to fix where the heel ends.  The solution would have been to do a few rows of stockinette at the back of the leg before starting the lace pattern.  I think that would have worked.  Or, this heel is not a good heel for this type of pattern.  Anyway, I'm not sure how wearable these socks are, which is too bad, because I think the yarn is beautiful, and I do like the lace pattern.

I mentioned that I had finished a few hats.  The first hat I just improvised as I knit it.  I am trying to stash bust, so I used a bulky weight brown Lions Brand yarn that I had in my stash.  I was going to do a seed stitch and a cable, but I decided that the yarn was too thick for this, so I stuck with a rib alternating with seed stitch sections.

The second hat that I made was a variation on the Turn a Square hat by Jared Flood.  I used some yarn that Colleen generously donated to our group.  She can't use wool yarn in her charity knitting, so when she gets donations that include wool, she often brings the wool to the group.  I snagged a few balls of Cascade 220 in various solid colors, and some unnamed variegated which I think is Berocco.  Instead of having 4 corners for decreases, I had 5 making the shape of the top of my hat into a pentagon.

Another little variation I put into this hat was that I added 5 purls spaced around the hat to divide it into the sections.  I  used the first purl to hide my color changes.

I really like how this hat came out.

The cowl for this class was from a pattern from Interweave Crochet.  I had one skein of sparkly acrylic that was part of a gift exchange last term in HPKCHC.  I had to make the cowl much thinner than the one in the magazine, as I didn't have a big skein.

Three easy and relatively quick projects.  Lots of yards used, so I hope lots of bonus points.

O!  I almost forgot to say that the  best part of finishing up these classes is that I won the drawing in September Solid Socks for the purple Hidden Hearts socks.  I will get a skein of sock yarn by GrittyKnits as my prize.  Yay!  more sock yarn for me.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet as a WINNER!