Jeremy’s Head
Isn’t this excellent?
He’s described it as his “mid-winter” hat. I told you it was warm.
He looks very mountain man-ish. 
By the way, when I didn’t like my color changes on Draft 1, I went to the Interwebs, and came up with a list of articles how to crochet color changes the right way. I’ll update my other post with the chart with these.
How to Crochet Using a Chart or Graph (includes color change)
Tapestry Crochet – right or left hand color changing. From Carol Ventura, who’s written tapestry crochet books.
How to Switch Colors and Use a Chart – Crochet by April Draven
An interesting yarn-joining/color-changing technique. Russian? Maybe.
A Hat Inspired by the Mountains it will be Used On
Last Christmas in Iowa I offered to make my brother a crocheted hat. A beanie, specifically, because that’s what snowboarders wear.
Snowboarders can be pretty serious about their beanies.
{Jeff wearing the hat. Jeremy has a bigger head than either of us. When I wear it, it comes down over my eyes.}
Jeremy took me up on the beanie offer and made his specifications: red on top, then blue, then charcoal. He picked out the yarn himself at Jo-Ann’s: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky in Charcoal and Medium Blue and Deborah Norville Serenity Chunky in red ochre. I’m amazed I know what the red one is, because Wesley LOVED it and tried to eat it at every opportunity. Wesley did away with the label a long time ago.
Jeremy requested that the hat depict his very favorite thing, mountains. That it match his snowboarding gear (blue and red). That it have a puffy yarn puffy thing on top made of all three colors. That it have a fleece ear lining for comfort.
Thus it was that this rather epically warm hat was made.
The color changes are made by carrying both yarns along as you crochet (i.e. tapestry crochet). I carried 2 strands of red or blue or gray the entire way, even if I wasn’t changing colors within a row, because I wanted the whole thing to be the same thickness.
I used a size L hook to do this. Even so, the hook was almost too small for 2 pieces of chunky yarn. It’s a thick hat. Sturdy. Squishy. I dare say this hat will take Jeremy comfortably through negative temps with no problems.
This was my third try making it. Totally my own pattern. I think I got it right this time. Can you see the ribbing on the bottom? It’s hard to see. It’s crochet-in-the-back post faux ribbing, i.e. 2 stitches regular, 2 stitches back post, repeat around.
The pattern (it’s a graph) is uploaded in case anyone would like to try, and is located here: Mountain Beanie – Excel or Mountain Beanie – PDF. It doesn’t have much explanation, just shows how many stitches in each repeat and the colors, and the number of stitches around for each of the 28 rows. My notes on carrying yarn and the ribbing are in the post. If anyone has problems with it, let me know!
Now to mail it to Jeremy.
Update: Added links to explanations of color changes for crochet, below.
By the way, when I didn’t like my color changes on Draft 1, I went to the Interwebs, and came up with a list of articles how to crochet color changes the right way. I’ll update my other post with the chart with these.
How to Crochet Using a Chart or Graph (includes color change)
Tapestry Crochet – right or left hand color changing. From Carol Ventura, who’s written tapestry crochet books.
How to Switch Colors and Use a Chart – Crochet by April Draven
An interesting yarn-joining/color-changing technique. Russian? Maybe.
Mittens, Holidays and Organization
Happy new year, y’all. How’s the year treating you so far?
{My brother, Jeremy, making honey walnut wheat bread.}
I’ve had any number of blog posts appear and disappear out of my head in the last few days. Mostly they disappear into the mashed potatoes that seem to be clogging up my head (hey Mom, you know that cold you had?). But basically, what I want to talk about boils down to three things: (1) mittens, (2) food prep and (3) family holidays. Not necessarily in that order.
{Lovely misty freezing weather in Iowa.}
Let’s start with the mittens though. I can’t seem to finish them. I’ll have you know I worked on an awesome traveling blog post about making mittens, only to find I wasn’t too pleased with what I was doing. Then I never seemed to have the time to sit down and work on them again, and finish. So here I am! Still mitten-less! This chaps my hide, if you’ll pardon the expression. I PROMISED MYSELF HANDMADE FUZZY MITTENS, and here I am still NOT with the mittens. Finishing them is my real goal for the week. Before it gets too warm to wear them.
{Jeremy’s bread, which I just finished off tonight along with my mom’s cranberry bread yesterday.}
Let’s move on to family holidays. I did what I’ve done many times in my life, and went to Iowa to my grandparents’ house. I love this ritual, and it’s something I remember doing for most of my life. It is a far drive, and I sacrifice other things to do it, but it is a dear and important tradition to me. This is usually the only time I see my maternal extended family during the year, so I make an effort to make the trip each year. I wish I could kick the a** of my paternal family to do the same periodic gathering sort of thing.
{It turns out my mom’s good at un-knotting tangled skeins of yarn. Thanks for those tangles, Wesley!}
On a side note, I got lots of great stuff. You? I gave almost 100% handmade things. It was definitely the season of felted pins. I did not make stuff, however. I will probably do something masochistic like that in the future (like some other crafty bloggers I know), but not this year. Once again, I failed to send holiday cards also. Meh. One day. Maybe I could send Memorial Day cards? Halloween?
{Denmark cemetery. You know, the old kind of town cemetery, dating to the 1800s, behind the church in the small town.}
This year I was in charge of the holiday food. Nine people from Tuesday to Saturday. Granted, I love to cook, and I don’t mind cooking a lot, but I’m used to cooking for two. This required meal planning. I love me some planning! I had charts, and I had lists, and I had recipes and I had … well, let me just show you:
See what I mean? I put notes and stuff on Flickr, too.
{I didn’t remember to get french fried onions for the green bean casserole, so I layered stuffing over the casserole instead, and it actually turned out pretty well.}
I was happy to have my grandmother (who is 83) sit while I did the work this year. She’s not good at just relaxing, but we tried. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot I can do for her being so far away, so it was good to do. Everyone else helped me out, and we all got fed on a regular basis. Usually my uncle Dan or my aunt Miriam do the cooking, but there’s no reason for me to sit around like a fence post. Uncle Dan helped with the meat a lot, which isn’t really my thing anymore.
{The day after Christmas it snowed. A lot. And Jeff drove on this to get us from Iowa to mid-Missouri. Good times! Actually, the glare from the windshield makes it look extra bad.}
The whole holiday was nice. Crazy family, crazy drive … oh hey. Did I mention there was a snowstorm on the way back to Texas? Jeff drove. I crocheted mittens. My mom got bored. It took two and a half days, but we made it in one piece. And THAT, my friends, is the mitten story. But it’s not today’s story.
