Crochet Pattern: Mini Top Hat Hair Clip

I've finally gone and done it, I've finally decided to blog a pattern I've created. To my "regular" readers: I'm very sorry and unless you want to learn how to crochet a mini top hat I'd recommend you stop reading here.

I'm going to break this pattern up into 4 parts, as this is a hair clip it doesn't matter about the size you can have it tiny or almost the size of a real hat. This is why I'm breaking it into sections, because it's so personal that you may want to make some changes to the pattern.

Notes:

Tension isn't really an issue with this pattern, I recommend using the smallest size crochet hook that your chosen yarn will allow in order to make it stiff. 

This pattern will be worked in rounds, in amigurumi style. Do not chain or turn after each round, continue in spirals.

I do not mention the amount of stitches you should have at the end of each row as I used a stitch marker and am assuming you will be doing the same thing. Sorry if you're not but I'm not down for all that counting.

Abbreviations:

Rnd: Round

ch: chain

sc: Single Crochet

sc inc: Single Crochet increase

sc dec: Single Crochet decrease. 

st: Stitch

BO: Bind off 

Part 1 - The top

Rnd 1: Ch 2, 6 sc in 2nd chain from hook.                                      
Rnd 2: sc inc in each st around.                                                        
Rnd 3: *sc, sc inc, repeat from* around.                                          
Rnd 4: *sc in next 2 st, sc inc. repeat from * around                        
(This is where I stop. If you feel that the top isn't big enough for your purposes keep increasing in the same manner. i.e. the next round will be *sc in next 3 st, sc inc, repeat from* around, and so on until you are happy with the size)                                                                       
When you're finished it should look a little something like the picture below. 

                                                  

Part 2 - The lip?

Rnd 1: (The only round in the section) sc around using only back loops. Again when you're done it should look a little something like this. 

Part 3 - The hat part                    

Note: I decrease at this stage giving my hat a Johnny Depp in a Tim Burton movie feel. If you don't dig the mad hatter vibe; this part is relatively simple, just sc each round until you feel that your hat is a good size, then BO leaving a long tail to sew on the base. If you do want your hat to have the wonky wonka feel follow the pattern below:                                                                               

Rnd 1-2: sc in each st around.                                                                       

Rnd 3: *sc in next 2 st, sc dec, repeat from* around. Note: I am writing this part assuming that you have followed part 1 without adding or subtracting any rounds, if you have changed that first part then you need to alter the decreases accordingly.                                                        

Rnd 4-5: sc in each st around.                                                                       

Rnd 6: *sc in next st, sc dec, repeat from * around.                                                                                Rnd 7-8: sc in each st around. BO leaving a long tail to sew on the base. When you're finished it should look a bit like the picture. 

                                                          

Part 4 - The brim

This part is really simple. All you need to do is repeat part one.           

Next rnd: *sc in next 3 sts, sc inc, repeat from* around. (Or, you know, if you've made it with more increases, increase that last row appropriately)                                                                                

Next rnd: sc in each st around. BO.                                                   

The finished brim will look a lot like the picture, then all you have to do is sew the 2 parts together.                                                                  

And there you have it, your very own top hat. In my hat I wanted a much more steam punk feel so I sewed some rust coloured ribbon around the brim and topped it off with a big knot. 

The perfect accessory to that steampunk wedding you've been invited to. 

I gave one as a gift to my husband, he said he was planning to go to a party as a man who grew in size but whose hat stayed the same size...he shaved his head the next week...I'm sure it has nothing to do with my hat.           

If you have any problems with the pattern I never check my comments so it's probably best to message me on my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/MichasCrafts

Sorry this pattern is so messy and in depth. If you have your heart set on making this I hope you are able to decipher it!                                                                               

Black mirror that also makes you look fat and ugly.

So I've just got through watching Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror.

I watched them out of order 1, 3 then 2 due to some recording issues (blasted technology ay? Seems to fit the theme) and I wish I hadn't.

It's not that I wish I hadn't watched them out of order, I just wish I hadn't watched them, or better still I wish they hadn't been made by Charlie Brooker. Unfortunately for me I follow everything the man has done. Black Mirror though?

I enjoyed the first one, it was horrifying but I was actually caught up in the search for Kate...I mean the princess. I wanted the Prime Minister to find her because, and let's be honest, I wouldn't even wish his fate on David Cameron.

Number 3 was interesting, there was a believable world with human emotion and drive. There was the whole thing about the paedophile baby sitter joke, when they didn't check on the baby the whole time they were home, I became convinced the babysitter was a paedophile, we'll never know. That would have been a twist at least, the parents being so self obsessed that they didn't even notice their baby being abused. Anyway.

My REAL beef was with episode 2. So it's a future where people work a dead end job all day and then have to sit around and watch TV or play games all night just to go to work the next day...wait a minute, that sounds like my life (at least before I broke my leg). The world didn't seem fully formed enough for a start, I had to rewind a few times to see if their actions were losing or gaining money (washing his hands made Bing gain and lose money apparently) and it wasn't entirely clear if people could have a relationship or not, you have to assume they can't because Bing was so upset about nothing being real, but how would the human race keep going? Also the twist was just a little too obvious, it was more a plot development than a twist, and overall there was absolutely no hope.

When a person works a dead end job they don't want to come home from their job and watch a show about someone with a dead end job and no hope for the future. We watch television to escape the world we're in, not to watch it mirrored on the screen. We want to think there IS hope, and watch a show where someone escapes there dead end job for their dream job; childminding whilst knitting. (No? Just me?)

I think what annoys me the most, was the way in which it was advertised. "Darkly Comic". But where was the comedy? There was a sincere lack of comedy across the board, I didn't laugh once for the whole series. So why was it branded as comedy? The only thing I can think is Charlie Brooker wanted the British public to watch it, so he said it was comedy. The truth is I would have watched it anyway because it was a Brooker production. I wouldn't have enjoyed it, but I would have seen it. If he wanted the rest of the public to watch it, the public that don't read the Guardian, just be honest about it. If someone wants a dystopian future with absolutely no hope then they will watch it. Mediaphobes everywhere would love to see a future where media has ruined the world. Maybe he wanted us to watch it because he thought it would be "good for us" to see. I know what's good and bad for me: Bananas - good, Chocolate - bad, Exercise - good, Meth -bad. See?

Ultimately I think people are innately better than the people in Black Mirror. Everyone has a little bit of good in them, and the majority of people would reject a world that was so limited. Technology is serving people to learn more and grow more, not to box us in. People wouldn't just embrace a change like that, people are crying out for freedom all around the world and technology is helping change to happen.

Perhaps I'm biased because I work with children, so I see the beauty in life. I've not been made bitter by being fired from The Xtra Factor. I don't have editors telling me I'm too extreme or too negative, or whatever journalists get told off for. I see children thriving to learn all they can every day, finding out as much as they can from every resource available to them, if those children are the future then the bleak future of Black Mirror can't be even a possibility.

I really don't want to be one of those bloggers sitting at home and winging about someone with talent but I'm dressed at least. I really do admire Brooker so I guess I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. I'm mostly disappointed that Charlie Brooker has a job that a lot of people in mundane jobs would love, so why is he telling us we're stuck in a hopeless cycle and no matter what we do we can't make a difference to the system? It doesn't seem fair really.

I'll be working with children, most probably, for the rest of my life maybe one day someone I care for will become a prime minister and bring about world peace. I like to think that. I could make a difference to 1 child who could make a difference to millions of people. That would be nice. Now it's time to think about nice things like rainbows and kittens and panda cubs and forget about nasty things like porn and exercise bikes.

In The Bleak Midwinter...

So today's advent calender chocolate was a mystery. So much a mystery in fact I need your help.

So what is this? It is a choir boy's head mounted above a fire place? (I think that's the most likely) or is it a reindeer that's had it's antlers cut off? Or maybe it's just a sheep in a scarf.

Comment if you have any better ideas!

Glen or Glenda?

So my cast is off! AND my weight bearing status has changed from "non weightbearing" to "it's complicated" Woohoo! party. My leg has been in there for over 2 months and I can barely recognize it as my own leg. It's really strange. I put both my legs next to eachother and it looked like one was mine and one was Josh's.

But whose is whose?

I have a lot of body hangups but I was really proud of my shotputter legs. The only muscle on my body...well now it's just shotputter leg. It's gonna take a lot of stairs to get my leg back to it's muscley baby lifting self.

The massive change (other than the masses of hair) is my ankle. I have some pretty gnarly scars and I seem to no longer have lumps where ankle lumps should be. It looks like I have cankles but I assure you I don't have cankles on my leg without metal. My husband has affectionately named it my mankle. Here I present: The Frankenfoot!

*Gasp* *Swoon* *Vomit*

So I'd been waiting 2 months to see how my leg is looking, I had hyped myself up and it was sort of an anti-climax. Yeah it looks gruesome, like so ugly that if I lived in the 1940's and wasn't already married I'd never find a husband. Don't get me wrong, the scars are great, but I'm a bit disappointed because it's TOTALLY different. My foot is thinner, my ankles don't look like ankles, the skin is flaking to the point of causing pain, and my foot has hair on it! Like a hobbit! I've never had hairy feet and now I have just the one!

Anyway, I'm sure it will be more muscley and less hairy soon. (Josh is hoping it will be less hairy soon) and when that gets back to normal maybe I won't mind the mankle. And I can always use the scars as a cautionary tale; Arrested Development style.

And THAT's why you don't leave toys lying around!

So it' time to say goodbye to my warm wrapped up leg, goodbye to mystery, goodbye to people drawing on my leg...well apart from this one guy at hospital...

My mum thinks it looks like a Penis.

Now it's time to say hello to a slow and painful recovery, especially now the doctors have taken me off the good drugs. The Penises.

Getting messy.

Here's my secret:

I'm not witty all of the time. Some of the time I'm knitting, baking, or candlestick making. Not so much baking these days :(

Anyway, I want to show off, but not so much I lose friends/followers so this is the ONLY TIME I will be posting about it.

Please check out my page and if you're into that sort of thing like it for me won'cha?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michas-Messy-Corner/143252619108093?sk=wall

Peace and love x

Spooky, Scary!

What's all this nonsense about Halloween? The spookiest of all holidays is the werewolf Bar Mitzvah.

Enjoy

Saturday Night Treats!!

I don't know if I've mentioned this recently but I have a poorly leg. Just in case you were wondering why I've posted a picture of my legs...that's why. Also, it's hard to see in this picture, when I took this picture my left leg was pretty swollen, the toes were about twice the size of my good leg, and one shade down from my bright red cast. (The 4th in a series of casts with a disappointing lack of dinosaur print)

I probably should have made sure my feet were next to eachother.

So, to cheer my up for my enormous foot, insane amounts of pain, and...well, just because it was Saturday, Josh bought some mad stuff for Saturday Night Treats.

That's right, that is a milk carton full of red juice.

I should probably explain what Saturday Night Treats is. We watch an old episode of Saturday Night Live and usually buy 1 type of treat to have with it. Recently we've been getting more and more treats to make up for the fact I can't have wine with my codeine. So we get a ton of sugar and get silly.

We find our limit last night. We had way too much sugar and we're agreed that the most we can handle is 1 type of sugary drink and 2 types of sickly food stuff. I'm still coming down from my sugar high. Even when we'd consumed so much sugar our sexy tum tums were making not so sexy noises, and our mouths were dry from only having sugar in them for as long as they could remember we kept right on eating. And drinking.

We were determined to get silly. So silly we got! A particular high point was finding an owl in with the strawbs. I was so freaking excited I started hooting like an owl. Then I started looking for a mouse to hunt and eat but with limited movement it meant looking around the sofa bed an giving up.

The owl didn't even taste of strawberries. I couldn't tell if it was raspberry or cola.

We rounded off the evening by watching various comedy shows and complaining about our full bellies. I also made triangles out or our wrappers and Josh tried to make them say words. As you can see I was much better at my job than he was at his.

What does that even say? oOor? Str?

Join us next time on Tales of the Mundane.