My friend Kevin sent me this cartoon on Facebook. I thought it was adorable.

I know how to use chopsticks, but maybe if I’m ever someone’s grandma, I’ll make them a scarf out of lo mein noodles.

I received a comment in July from LuannD on my post about my antique crochet hooks. She wrote, “I just received from an 80 year old woman an antique crochet hook, size 14, made by a company named Champion, which is stamped on the hook. I googled Champion with no leads. I then googled “crochet hooks” hoping someone here is familiar with this. The hook is barely tarnished, extremely tiny and looks to be make of silver. I am mainly looking for the year this hook would be made, and what was its use.
I would be so appreciative to anyone, who can give me information on this find. I plan to mount it in a 3D frame with a caption. Thank you all so much in advance.”

Does anyone have any Champion crochet hooks? All of my antique crochet hooks say “Milward” or “Crawley’s England” I’m guessing they’re just a brand that was around when my great-grandmother was knitting and crocheting in the ’40s or ’50s, similar to Susan Bates knitting needles and crochet hooks today. The best thing to do with them is use them… because that’s what crafting tools are for!

I’m actually using my antique crochet hooks now to put the edging on a shawl I’ve been working on for the past few months, but I’ve been working a lot on it this summer. The pattern is the Evenstar Shawl by Susan Pandorf.

The center looks like a flower:

Then there are leaves:

Then there are some archways filled in with a mesh sort of pattern:

And instead of binding off the stitches, you cast on some extra stitches and knit the edging perpendicular to the outside of the shawl, using the last stitch on the right side of the edging to knit together with one of the edge stitches of the shawl. Of course, no lace shawl would be complete without thousands of seed beads.

That’s where the crochet hook comes in:

The picture is of the size 12 crochet hook with seed beads on it next to a size H crochet hook. To put the seed beads on the shawl, you grab the stitch with the crochet hook and take it off the knitting needle. Then, you slide the bead over the hook and onto the stitch and put the stitch back on the knitting needle. Then knit or purl the stitch as normal. Easy!

The last time we flashed back to the good ol’ days was in May when I talked about some horrendous sweaters in a Woman’s Day catalog from 1979.
Today we’ll travel back in time and knit some groovy hats and scarves. We’ll look almost as posh as these women in their oversized peacoats:

This 20-page booklet is from a company called Colombia-Minerva, and I don’t think they’re in business anymore. The date on this pamphlet is disputable. It says 1969 on my copy. The only one I’m finding for sale online is from 1975 and selling for $7.50, 10 times the amount it was sold for back in 1969.
There was a highly amusing poem to go with all of the hat patterns:

… as if it’ll make us want to knit the hats MORE by including bits of a weird hat poem on colored blocks among the photos.
Hats are one of the best things to knit in the summer, along with mittens and scarves. They tend to be fairly small projects, so if you’re knitting them out of a heavy wool, you won’t be encumbered by a giant, warm project draped over your lap in the summer. (Hint: Afghan knitting is NOT good for summer.) When you’re done with your hats, you’ll be all set for winter and won’t be frantically knitting a hat to keep your head warm when it gets cold outside. Genius!
You can also knit hats and mittens and stockpile them for Christmas.
I, for one, will be knitting this hat:

Okay, maybe not. I hope that poor child didn’t suffer long-term mental scarring from having to model that atrocious winter hat. Is it supposed to be a hat or a cowl… or some kind of hood thing? If it’s a hood, where’s the rest of the sweater?
The weird thing about the knitted hat patterns is that absolutely none of them are knitted in the round. None. They’re all knit back and forth, shaped on two needles. Then you fold it into a cylinder and sew up a back seam to make a hat shape. Here’s an example of a pattern:

For those who dislike knitting in the round, (my husband is one), the hat patterns are probably your cup of tea. I LOVE knitting in the round. Oddly, it feels like I get more knitting done, even though if I knit the same thing flat, it would take the same amount of time.
The pattern above uses Bernat brand yarn. The company is still in existence and Bernat yarn can still be found at your local big-box craft store. I’m sure the Berella Germantown no longer exists, but you would probably want to substitute a worsted- to bulky-weight yarn (probably Bernat Alpaca or Bernat Softee Chunky) if you’re using the US 9 needles, as recommended.
Anyway, that’s all for Flashback Friday! Make all of your winter accessories this summer, and be prepared for winter!

Last August I started a pair of white beaded socks that had a rather complicated-looking lace pattern on them.
Now, at the end of “Frog it or Finish it” month, I’m still plugging away.

I feel like sock projects deceive me. Socks are so small, but you don’t realize how big the project is until you’re finished with the first sock and start to dread starting the second sock.
Socks are between 68 and 72 stitches around. It’s a lot of stitches, especially when you look at baby-sweater patterns and they start with 30 to 40 stitches. But they’re not a big deal when you think of a laceweight shawl that might end with more than 600 stitches.
The tedium arrives when you’re working on double-pointed needles and you keep going around and around on them for what seems like hours and you don’t have much to show for it.

I started both of the socks at the same time on two different sets of double-pointed needles.

The pattern was a mystery pattern (you can see it on Ravelry, here). The designer created the whole pattern, then released it in four separate parts, or “clues,” one for each week of the month. Ideally, the knitter knits a mystery pattern without knowing what is coming next. It’s a lot of fun to wonder what sorts of fun techniques the designer has planned for the pattern.
The pattern in its entirety has been out for some time now. When the third part of the pattern was released, I put the project down and didn’t look at it for several months. Now that I’ve picked it back up, I’m determined to finish it.