Raspberry Ripple Crochet

This month, although I have still been motoring on with my reading challenge I have also been getting on with some crochet for myself. I got hold of some lovely yarn in Boyes the other week with the intent of making myself a new scarf. The yarn is King Cole Galaxy DK in Pink Tourmaline and is lovely and soft and sparkly. 

Not entirely sure why I chose such a bright shade of pink, but the black helps to make it less in-your-face and I am glad of the cheerful shade on miserable days. 

I spent ages on Ravelry looking at scarf patterns and found one I quite liked which had been invented from a hat pattern the writer had previously made! I did look at making it and then at the last moment spotted a pattern in Simply Crochet issue 4 called Raspberry Ripple which just seemed the perfect thing to go with the yarn.

I got out hook and yarn and set to it straight away. I found the project grew quite quickly, but getting through 2 whole balls of yarn still takes time. The pattern is a pretty fan and mesh design which, when I finished, I decided to add tassels to the ends of. 

I was so pleased with it and still had two balls of yarn leftover, so I decided I could make a matching hat. Going back to Ravelry I came back to the original hat pattern that had inspired the scarf I liked (this is so much more complicated to explain that it is in practice!)

The pattern, Urban Jungle, is finished off with a rather cool star shaped top and it made me think if I could maybe use the pattern but with the fan and mesh design rather than the puff stitches of the original. 

Are you keeping up with all this at the back? Not sure I am anymore...

Anyhow, I cast on, using a slightly smaller hook than recommended as I had a lighter weight yarn than suggested. I crocheted the band exactly as stated in the pattern and then, after crocheting a foundation row of DC (SC to our American friends) moved in to the mesh and fan design I had used for the scarf. I had somehow managed to make the hat exactly 3 times the pattern of the scarf. Genius. So I crocheted away, joining my rows, but turning each time to keep the pattern correct. 

I have ended up with a slightly weird bit up the back, but as my rows started and finished on the back seam, which you don't see when the hat is worn, I just went with it. 

The other adjustment I made was to not make the hat quite as long as the stated pattern. It says to crochet until 12" from the bottom of the band, but I stopped at 10" as I was happy with the amount of slouch that gave me. I then had to make a solid band around the top so that I could use the star shaped closing that I was after. This meant I chained and slip stitched all the way around once and then did a row of DC into that.

Yes, this is really out-of-focus, it's not your eyes!

I then followed the pattern to the best of my ability (it's a bit fiddly/confusing to me at that point) and have indeed ended up with a star closure :)

Sadly, it doesn't show up terribly well on the photos I took... 

But, there you have it. My new hat and scarf set :) Now, I am just working out if I could get some mitts out of what I have leftover...