Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Crochet Fireman Hat

Pin It

Finally, after a long time, I am here to show you something...


A fireman hat.  

Do you think a kid would ever find a firefighter hat boring? Not at all!

Mine is super exited and I am pleased too with the way the hat has turned out. The pattern is for sale and you can find it in my Etsy shop. I have written the pattern in 3 sizes: baby, toddler and child/preteens. So, if anyone is interested pay a visit to my shop and you will find a few more hat pattens as well.

Thanks for visiting, thanks for following and thanks for all the lovely comments that you leave here! I simply LOVE this place. 

Friday, February 10, 2012

♥ Valentine Cake Hearts ♥

Pin It

I think I am the only person in blogland who hasn't made a Valentine post yet.
So here it is...

This is actually a chocolate walnut cake that I baked about 10 days or so ago but did't have the time to post it. The receipe is originally a chocolate cake recipe to which I added a handful of walnuts (that was all I had at home) to make this delicious choco-walnut cake.

This pretty flower is from my balcony garden. I am really not lucky when it comes to gardening. So this flower makes me so happy. Ah! But I should admit that the plant already had the bud in it when I planted it in the pot and it was ready to bloom :)))

The recipe for the cake is super easy and you can try it out.

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cups
Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Sugar - 1 cup
Milk - 1/2 cup
Cooking oil - 1/2 cup
Eggs - 2 
Vanilla - a few drops (optional)

Sieve the dry ingredients (Flour, cocoa and baking powder).
I always powder my sugar after measuring it so that it dissolves quickly. 
Blend together the oil, milk, eggs and vanilla using an electric blender.
Add sugar and the sieved dry ingredients. Blend everything together until combined.
Pour into your greased and seasoned cake pans and bake. The ideal temperature setting for my oven is 150 degree C. I bake for 40 mins or until done.

Oops! I forgot the walnuts. Add 1/4 cup of chopped and roasted walnuts at the end and fold them into the dough. I didn't have 1/4 cup. It was a little less than that.

ed the crunchy, nutty taste in my chocolate cake. Hmm... the thought makes me drool.


I have to thank all of you for all the lovely comments you leave here. Also, I have to mention the awards that you give me. Awards are really nice and they make you feel elated, wanted, important, humbled, etc., but they also make me feel uncomforable. So I don't accept awards. Everytime someone has left an award for me I feel really bad refusing to accept it. I hope you will understand. The comments that you leave here appreciating my work mean a thousand times more to me than an award. So instead of awards leave comments and more comments. That would make me really happy.

♥ ♥ ♥ Thanks and have a nice day ♥ ♥ ♥

Friday, February 3, 2012

How do you crochet a hat...

Pin It


...or beanie or whatever. I know, there are plenty of tutorials, patterns, etc. that you can find on the Internet. On my part, I am also sharing a few points with you. As you might have known by now, I am on a hat-crocheting spree and felt it is more appropriate to do this post right now before I get bored of hats.




Most of you would know how to crochet a basic beanie, but I am sure there are lots more who don't have an idea about it. Even if you know how to go about it, I bet there is one big question many of you will have, "how to determine the correct size?"

Now, I am not an expert in this area. I am fairly new to crocheting hats, but from what I have researched on the internet, there are a few things which might help you to crochet a hat of the desired size.

*Measure the size of the head.
Wrap a measuring tape around the head (forehead, back of head, above ears) to find out the circumference of the head.

You can click here to get a chart on head sizes for different age groups.

The beanie that I have shown here measure 12.5 inches in circumference. It will fit a newborn head.

Now you have measured the circumference of the head and you would want to make a hat of that circumference, but remember that the hat will stretch.  So make it an inch or two smaller. A hat that has been made using double crochet stitches will stretch more than one made using single crochet stitches.

You can either start from the bottom and move towards the top or start from the top and move towards the bottom, which is more common.

I will explain to you how to start from the top. First you have to make a flat circle which forms the top of the hat. You will be expanding the circle to reach the desired size. This is where most of you will have the question, "when to stop expanding.?" I found in the internet a formula for this.

Say for example, you want to crochet a hat of 12.5-inch circumference. You have to divide this measurement by 3.14 (value of pi)
So, 12.5/3.14 is approximately 3.98, which can be rounded off to 4.

You have to stop expanding when you have reached a diameter of 4 inches.


There is one more method. Place the circle on top of the head and check if the edges of the circle are in line with the ears. Ah, I made a small drawing to explain it :))) Hope you can get it. So now you can stop expanding and start working even.

Are you someone who don't know how to expand a circle? If you know how to make a magic circle, it is very helpful. Otherwise,

  • Ch 3.
  • 8 dc into the 2nd ch from hook. Join with slip stitch to beginning of round.
  • 2 dc into each dc (16 st)
  • Increase in every alternate stitch, i.e., 2 dc + 1 dc + 2 dc + 1 dc + ... (24 st)
  • 2 dc + 1 dc + 1 dc + 2 dc + 1 dc + 1 dc + 2 dc ... (32 st)
  • 2 dc + 1 dc + 1 dc + 1 dc + 2 dc + 1 dc + 1 dc + 1 dc + 2 dc ... (40 st)
You will keep increasing in this manner until you have reached the required size. As I mentioned earlier my hat measures 12.5 inches in circumference, so I stopped expanding when I reached 4 inches diameter. From the next step onwards you will start working even, i.e., 1 dc into each dc. Once you have stopped expanding and started working even, the edges of your circle will start to bend.


 You will continue working even until you have reached the desired length. That's it. You can use any stitch: sc, hdc or dc. When you use single crochet, the stiches are more compact and stretches little whereas a hat made using a double crochet will have more stretch.  I hope that helped.

You can visit my Etsy shop for crochet patterns.



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...