Baby Hats

Hello Everybody,

I just thought I'd share with you some baby hats that I've made recently. Back in September, my friend gave birth to her baby girl a bit earlier than expected and she weighed just 1lb 9oz! It was a stressful few months but she's doing well now and weighs nearly 6lb. Premature babies struggle to maintain their body temperature so have to wear warm clothes. I made her a few little hats. I forgot to take photos of some of them, but I'm sure you get the idea. They are really quick and easy to make and are great for practising knitting in the round, Fair Isle, stripes, intarsia etc. I mostly made knitted hats, but a few crochet ones snuck in too.

I found it quite hard to find patterns for teeny tiny preemies. The pattern I mainly used was one I found on a random typed piece of paper that someone gave me years ago. It's not credited to anyone, so I'll type it out here.

I made the smaller size, which I think still just about fits the baby (so probably up to 6lb). It also fit her when she was much smaller too. In the picture with the dusky pink hat, she was just under 4lb.

Using 3.5 mm needles (can be done in the round or straight) and DK wool (you can use 4-ply and smaller needles to size it down for a tiny baby):
Cast on 60 (70) stitches. Work 6 rows K1P1 rib.
Change to 4 mm needles (I actually didn't bother) and continue in stocking stitch until work measures 9 cm.
Then decrease:
1st row: K6 (7), K2tog, rpt til end.
2nd and alternate rows purl (or knit a row if knitting in the round).
3rd row: K5 (6), K2tog, rpt til end.
5th row: K4 (5), K2tog, rpt til end.
Continue decreasing as thus until approx. 12 stitches remain.
Work one row. Break yarn off and thread through remaining stitches. If worked straight, sew edges together with as smooth a seam as possible.

The crochet pattern I used was from Rosie's Cozies, it was the one with the ear flaps. The hats on this site are really cute and were designed for a 1lb 7oz baby that sadly didn't make it. I'm sure they can be easily modified for a larger baby. I only made one of these for the baby when she was still under 2lb but she wore it for some time.

I'm going to try and find some free time every month to make a hat to donate to the local SCBU/NICU. They are quick to make and can really make a difference. Make sure you use a washable yarn!

Thistle Girl x

Introducing Rupert

Hello Everybody,

Yes, I know - I've been astonishingly bad at blogging this year. It's now May and I have just realised that haven't posted anything since January. Oops. I have a few things to share with you and I'm going to start with Rupert.

Rupert arrived to live at Thistle House on Good Friday. He came all boxed up and I actually didn't unpack him until the next day, despite being very excited to meet him. Here he is:

Can you guess what he is? He's a Roomba 770 Robotic Vacuum Cleaner made by iRobot. Yes, before you ask, I am lazy. I absolutely HATE vacuum cleaning and never seem to be able to find the time to do it. To be honest, I'd rather spend my life doing other things, so I thought I'd treat myself.

He's fab, I fell in love with him straight away. Rupert can't do stairs and obviously will only clean areas he can get to/around, but he does a pretty good job. I can't believe how much dirt he keeps finding - I did a thorough clean before putting him to work. He goes under the beds and sofas and has even brought a sock back to his docking station for me - it's like having a little pet. I've used him at least every other day since I got him and he's still behaving himself. He comes with a virtual wall to stop him going places, but I haven't used it yet as it takes those really fat batteries and I don't have any. I'm not sure it's really necessary in my house anyway. I just open all the doors on one floor and let him work his way from room to room. He's quite slow and although not as noisy as a traditional vacuum, still quite loud. I was a bit worried about the size of the waste compartment before getting him. He does need to be emptied regularly, but can manage an entire floor of the house in one go with no probs.

Here is his underside (sorry Roops):

He is a bit dirty and due a nappy change - sorry. The compartment at the bottom is where he collects his dust. It's usually transparent so, as you can see, it's full! The compartment above that contains two brushes that can be removed. One with bristles (covered in my hair!) and one with rubber bits. Then at the top left there's a little brush that spins around, getting in all the nooks and crannies. You can take that out to be cleaned too. It all seems very easy to maintain. There are two little filters but I don't think they can be washed and replacement ones have to be bought every so often.

Rupert came with two brush cleaning tools, which are rather nifty. 

The one on the left, or above, is one for the bristle brush. It is ingenious. You just slide the brush through the centre hole and all the hair gets caught in its teeth. Brilliant.

The other one I haven't used as much. It is a multitool and includes a tiny scalpel edge for slicing through stubborn bits of tangled hair etc.

Rupert has on occasion got himself in a bit of a tangle. Generally, he untangles himself (he has an anti tangle mechanism!) and cables don't appear to be a problem. However, I have some bits of spare carpet with unsealed edges that he like to chew and unravel (they have been moved now) and he also once bumped into a pile of yarn, knocked it over and started to eat it. Fortunately, no harm was done to either Rupert or the yarn.

Speaking of which, here is the yarn in question:

It is Wendy Capri - the label look as though it's from the 80s or 90s - and is a textured cotton/acrylic mixed in off-white with strands of pastel blue and pink running through it. It was donated to me - I have a bagful- and I have no idea what to do with it. I could always make dishcloths or shower scrubs. Initially, I was going to make a baby toy, but wasn't sure whether it would be weird with blue and pink?

Any ideas?

Anyway, I'm going to love you and leave you with a photo of these wonderfully fragrant freesias, which are brightening up my lounge in this dull weather.

Thistle Girl x

Owl Hat

Hello Everybody,


Two posts in one day- wow it must be a Christmas miracle. Just wanted to tell you about a project that I'm actually quite happy with - a hat. Now, normally I have a bit of trouble with hats - getting the size and shape correct. I have had a few successes but a few failures also. One most noticeably last year when, inspired by a friend who was also making one, I decided to make a Phannie. Yes, you heard that correctly. I'll say it again, because it amuses me slightly. Phannie. Now, on Ravelry it states that over 900 people have made this so it's pretty popular. Some have turned out fab, others are er... interesting. Mine was in the 'interesting' category. I made it with some nice yarn, Freedom Spirit, in a purple/pink colour way but when I had finished it, it looked like well goodness knows what. I tried it on, and it looked even worse. I threw it across the room and then hid it. I haven't even been able to get it out to frog it. Unusually for me, I didn't even take a photo. I may traumatise you with one at some point though. Anyway, this is a very long winded way of saying that I wanted to make a hat. I wanted one that was the right size and shape and that (hopefully) no-one else on my train would be wearing. It seems everyone is wearing bear/panda/cat hats from high street chain stores, which are very cute but I wanted something different. 


So, after a bit of searching and hunting around Ravelry, I eventually settled on a hat design called Who?, which incorporates some cute cabled owls. The Ravelry page for the pattern is here (it's free!) and my Owl Hat project page is here.

I used yarn that I bought at Fibre Flurry 2011 but I can't really remember who I bought it from or what it is as it was in a bargain bin and unlabelled. I think it's an alpaca mix and approximately 4-ply, it's a hot pink vibrant colour. I use a 3.25 mm circular and after a few rows it was looking a little loose. As I was worried about going down a needle size (the pattern actually called for worsted weight and 4mm needles) as I thought the hat would be too small, I just held the yarn double which seemed to work quite well. 


The hat knitted up really quickly and only took me a couple of days. The cabled owls were really easy and stand out fairly well, although they would be more prominent in a bulkier yarn I should imagine. Although others had only put buttoned eyes on one or two owls, I thought this was the cutest bit so put them on all my owls. I also added a pompom for goo measure, although it was properly more trouble than it was worth!


Here is the finished result:

It's a slightly strange shape as it's stretched around a light! The first few rows of the ribbing are a bit looser as I didn't want to frog and start again so left them as single held yarn.

I think the buttons are pretty cute. They're quite tiny and in various shades of purple and pink with some polka dots. They're the Papermania capsules Mini Buttons and I think I mixed up a couple of packet colours. I bought them from Hobbycraft a while ago but you can get them from various places online - think they might be these ones.

So, what do you think? Has anyone else made one of these owl hats? If so, please show me. Also, I'd be interested to hear about other cute but fairly foolproof hats so I can build a collection and have a warm head all winter long. Apparently, there's also some matching hand warmers or mittens on Ravelry but I'm going to finish the pair of hand warmers that I've started first!

Thistle Girl x