My fourth finish.

I haven't made an awful lot of progress on things over the last couple of weeks. I didn't even do an update last weekend, mainly because I spent most of the week re-reading the entire Harry Potter series, rather than doing any crafting!

This week, however, I have been in the mood to craft again. I've been far too tired after work to face up to the endless rows of Momijigari, Cwtch Shawl or Eleonora, so I started looking through my list again for something else to work on in the mean time.

Top of the list, and top of my Ravelry queue, was this gorgeous petrol blue yarn.

I bought this yarn over a year ago, specifically to make the Holly Berry Gloves. With the weather turning quite rapidly now we're into October, I decided now was the time to download the pattern and get started.

I didn't get very far at all. I just couldn't get my head around the pattern, or make my hands do what the pattern was trying to get me to do. Not helped, of course, by the fact that my wrist is still injured and doesn't cope well with lots of faffing about. So I abandoned the gloves and went in search of something easier.

There wasn't much choice of pattern on Ravelry, when I did my search. Not for gloves, anyway. I branched out, and found myself drawn to a crochet pattern called Phannie.

Such a quick and easy project! I mostly watched James Bond movies while I was making this, so now whenever I look at it I think of Pierce Brosnan and his implausible invisible car from Die Another Day.

Project: Head Glove

Pattern: Phannie by Phoebe Gaughan

Yarn: Stylecraft Luxury Wool Rich DK in Petrol (2463) - just under one ball

Hook: 4.5mm

I made a few modifications to the pattern. Firstly, I started with a magic loop, rather than chaining 4 and joining in a ring. After reading lots of comments about it coming out small, I decided to keep increasing further than the pattern recommended, as I don't have a tiny head and I wanted it to have the right amount of slouch. My finished hat measures 12" across when laid flat (pre-blocking).

I worked rounds 1 - 14 as the pattern, but then did the following:

round 15 - as round 14

round 16 - increase round (32 fpdcs with 5 dcs between)

round 17 - as round 14

round 18 - decrease round (32 fpdcs with 4 dcs between)

round 19 - decrease round (32 fpdcs with 3 dcs between)

round 20 - decrease round (32 fpdcs with 2 dcs between)

round 21 - decrease round (32 fpdcs with 1 dcs between)

then finished off with rounds 18-20 from the pattern.

I left off the final round, because that would have made the brim far too tight, and it fits great as it is!