SweetShop Studio: Head in a Basket? (and a few other things...)

Hi, SweetShoppers! I have a few quick updates for today...first of all, I've been busy writing a new hat pattern for the online shop(which should be back up soon...) It's a basketweave worked in the round...subtle but still pretty and visually interesting. I'm wearing my sample in the photos...I hope you'll all like it as much as I do...

So let's see, what else have I been working on? Oh, yes...remember The MC hat that I was working on? I finally finished it, and...

Ooh. No. Double no. Aside from the fact that I am wearing the hat inside out in this photo, I just don't like the way it came out. It's WAY too big(my own fault, for preemptively deciding to go up a hook size) and the join at each row is very visible. It's lovely pattern, but I didn't do a great job on it. The only thing I really liked about this experiment is the color combination. I wasn't too sure about this, but the mellow gray really makes the pastel yellow pop and appear almost neon. It's a really funky combination and one I'll be trying again in the future.

One last thing...I'm sure I'll be doing a full blog post about this when I track down who is responsible, but the other day I was walking in downtown Denver, near the Union Station construction site, and stumbled upon a fence full of crocheted flowers. I have no idea who's done this or why, but it was an unexpectedly cheery sight on a cold winter day.
I spent about twenty minutes taking pictures of all of the flowers on my phone(and probably looked a bit crazy while doing so...) but the display is really cute and well put together. It fronts a truly ugly, eyesore construction site and elevates the sometimes-grim cityscape just a bit...but a very important bit.

My favorite flower was this one...

And with that, I'll leave you to your crafty days, beautiful people. Peace!!

SweetShop Workshop; The MC from Get Your Crochet On!: Hip Hats and Cool Caps

Remember how I said I wasn't going to do much with the shop but was going to share more of my personal crafting on the blog? Consider that promise kept, beautiful people. What you see here is a snapshot of my latest personal project--a version of The MC hat from Afya Ibomu's funky pattern book Get Your Crochet On! Hip Hats and Cool Caps. I recently was given quite a lot of fun new acrylic yarn and due to moving a lot lately, find myself low on hats.

I'll post new pics when it's finished, but for now, I have a few quick thoughts on the variations I'm including;

• Afya Ibomu must be an *incredibly* loose crocheter because I always have to go up a hook size or two to match her gauge. The pattern calls for a 5.0 mm hook. The hook pictured is a 6.5. (BTW, I got that hook in a long-ago January sale haul, blogged about here.)
• The pattern also calls for starting with 4 sc, joined into a ring, which is then crocheted into. That's a pretty common start for hats or any pattern crocheted in the round. However, that still leaves a small hole in the top of the hat. I guess that's not usually a problem, but I have an afro, and nothing ruins your daily cute like having afro popping through the top of your hat via a coin-sized hole. I much prefer the magic loop technique because you can close the hole, so that's what you see here. I'll draw it all the way closed when I've finished the hat.
• Last thing for now...the stripes and color combination. The original pattern doesn't include striping instructions, so I'm just winging it by switching colors when I feel like it. I don't know how I feel about the color combo just yet though. I wanted to try something new, and had some pretty gray with a slightly pinky taupe undertone. I don't have enough for a whole hat, though, so I decided to match it with a light floral yellow. In theory it works. In person it looks...okay. We'll see what happens when the hat is finished, I guess.

I'll post more pics when this hat is finished, beautiful people. Meanwhile, hope you're all having a great day--feel free to share in the comments what *you're* working with.