A taste of things to come: opaque, milky white.

Lime green, the blue of a blue-flavored Icee (who really knows what that's supposed to taste like).

Sherbet. Lemony yellow, bubblegum blue, bright orange, strawberry pink.

Citrus fruit. Tangerine. Pink grapefruit. Lemon. Kumquat.

Hard candy. Strawberry. Grape. Lavender.

Chocolate. Chocolate coins, chocolate covered peanuts, swirls on a piece of hand-dipped chocolate.

It's hard to believe this project is over a year old. I have quite a few projects for show and tell, so sit back, relax, and read on!

Yarn: Lana Grossa Multicot (50g; 80m; 60% Cotton, 40% Microfiber). 2 balls in #39 Purple, 1 ball in #1 White. (Purchase here.)
Needles: US5 and US7 dpns
Notions: Stitch markers, tapestry needle

Gauge: 18 sts x 24 rows = 4" on US7

Size: Fits adult head 21" and larger! This hat is 8" tall.

Skills: knitting in the round, paired decreases, chart reading, intarsia

First, knit the lining. Start with US5 needles; using a provisional cast-on and waste yarn, cast on 90 sts. Place marker. Join and knit in stockinette for 26 rows.

Switch to US7 needles and p 1 row. This is your turning row. K 6 rows, placing a second marker between the 45th and the 46th st. This marks the middle/front of your work, and serves as reference point for your intarsia work. All intarsia will be knit in stockinette stitch. Begin pattern chart of 25 sts x 19 rows.

Having finished the chart, k 1 row, removing middle marker.

Adjust any loose stitches on your intarsia work. Turn hat inside out and use the tapestry needle to anchor all loose ends firmly into the inside of the work. Trim all ends to 2". Turn hat out. Fold lining in at the purled turning row, so that the purl sides are facing each other, and thus covering the back of your worked intarsia.

Next row: Undo about 4-6 sts of the lining at a time, and knit 1 lining st together with 1 hat st.

Knit 9 more rows, placing a st marker every 15 sts (6 total). Continue with decreases according to chart. Cut yarn, leaving a 6" tail. Thread tail through remaining 6 sts, draw tight and secure. Weave in end into the inside of the hat.

Block and wear with vegan pride!

© 2008 Mary Joy Gumayagay and Indus3ous.com. All rights reserved. This pattern may be freely distributed as long as the pattern, images, text, and this copyright notice remain intact and no profit is made from its distribution or use. Read extended copyright here. For pattern assistance please post in comments below.

According to a couple of climbing friends, this here hat is not a hat, it's a tuque. Granted, they were Canadian/Irish, and James has indicated that his mission in the world (of climbing, at least), is to make everyone aware that these things, these tube things you put on your head to keep it warm? These things are called "tuques". Pronounced "two-k". So in honor of you, James and Carole, this post is named thus.

The tuque is your standard pattern: knit up from the bottom with decreases.

I made paired decreases, a break from spirals. Plus, BFF has deemed spirals "too girly", whatever that means. He has no idea. His next "tuque", the one with "@S!*#&", will have spiral decreases. Subtle revenge is sweet.

I knit in a lining. In part it's because the knit side is much smoother against the skin than the purl side; in part to cover the intarsia to prevent clumsy man hands from snagging on the the yarn. The hat's stayed in decent shape so far.

I'll be honest and show you a closeup of my crappy intarsia! You'll notice the tight tension on the y descender, and how much better it is toward the top. Intarsia's a little difficult to master, but challenges are good. I'm not about to embark on something complicated (hello, Miss Pamela and her Piers pullover), I just thought I'd give it a try. Also? I ripped this thing out quite a few times and walked away from it. Almost tossed it into the Aegean. It was frustrating but well worth the effort.

Here's the tuque back home in Germany. Don't let that momentary sunlight in the window fool you! It's been snowing for 7 days now and we're jonesing for the wonderful sun in Greece...

Pattern to come shortly.

It's been snowing since we returned from Greece! Goodness! Whatever happened to spring?

Part of BFF's birthday present (Greece being the big one) was knitting a hat he'd requested for the last 3 months. It wasn't an ordinary hat, no no; it was this particular beauty that he wanted, ever since we watched some biathlon event on tv and a German athlete whizzed by wearing a purple hat with an embroidered Milka logo.

"I want one of those," were his precise words. "Sure," I replied. It took a serendipitous trip to a nearby yarn store that was closing to get the yarn; an almost accurate match in color. I had some leftover cream-colored yarn so I decided to use them together, even though the purple yarn was a cotton mix and the cream yarn was a wool mix. (BFF won't know!) I had to explain to him that in knitting, each letter is made of v-shaped stitches; there was no way I was going to embroider this over knitting.

So.

You'll notice my knitting says "Soy..." Well, I did indeed chart the word "Milka" in script style and showed it to BFF, who approved it. But when it came time to actually knitting it, he changed his mind. "How about Soya?" he asked, so out came the pen and grid paper (actually, I did it in Adobe Illustrator). A few minutes later I had a new chart, and I actually had him pencil his signature on a piece of paper to approve it. (Clients. You know, get them to sign off on a project before they change their mind. You'll save a lot of trouble on your part later on.)

This is the back of my intarsia. It took me a few days to figure out how I was going to do it. Should I strand the yarn all over the hat? Should I cut 4 long strands of yarn and use one for each letter? In the end, I used one strand and knit with it across every row. On odd rows I worked the yarn from right to left. On even rows, I left a long loop of yarn and knit with this loop, then pulled the excess yarn through the stitches. As well, to avoid having a visible tension between side stitches on each row, I anchored the working yarn two stitches from the intarsia. This technique is by no means original; Rick Mondragon (the current editor of Knitting Magazine) first documented it. A better explanation of this technique is blogged about here.

Pardon the lighting, I knit the hat while in Greece and didn't have time for props and proper lighting and blah blah blah. I'm about to join the lining and hat stitches together. Don't be like me and put the lining stitches on needles and attempt to fold them into the hat. First fold the lining in, then undo the provisional cast-on 4-8 stitches at a time. I poked quite a few holes in the hat using my dummy method!

Here's the finished birthday hat on my birthday boy! He wore the hat all throughout the rest of our stay in Greece, and he received many compliments, from climbers, on it. Now he wants a hat that says "@$!*#&". Oh shitsky, what have I started?

We just booked our tickets three days ago and now we're on our way! Greece! We're headed for the island of Kalymnos, well-known as a winter destination for rock climbing.

We will be in Greece from Friday, February 29 to Wednesday, March 19.

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm on Inspir(al)ed. The pattern will still be on sale while I'm away, but please note that I can't answer any questions as I won't have any reliable internet access.

In the meantime, here are some links for Greece:
◊ The Wikipedia entry
◊ The Greece tourism site
◊ National Geographic's minisite on Greece
◊ A site dedicated to Ancient Greece
◊ This one, too
◊ A climber's account on Kalymnos

See you in March! Adio!

Thanks for the feedback, ladies! Here it is! Enjoy the pattern!

Inspir(al)ed was inspired by Marnie Maclean's Nautilus hat. The spiral is one of those natural forms whose appearance, anywhere, is so appealing, and finding Marnie's pattern when I was relatively new to knitting was kismet. As anyone who's knit hats will know, the spiral also appears in decreases on a bottom-up knit hat. I wanted to incorporate something interesting around this, and after much trial and error, and two months of back-and-forth with my incredibly generous and patient tech editor (who else), Inspir(al)ed is fit for release.

This knit hat is enhanced by a four-stitch cable that circles up to the top. As well as having two yarn weight options, there are two lifted increase options. The pattern may seem easy, but pay attention to the charts!

Marnie wears the worsted weight version here. This version makes a thicker hat with only 6 spiral sections, whereas the sport weight version has 7 spiral sections.

Go here to purchase pattern.

(Special thanks to Marnie Maclean.)

The upgrade and redesign has not been working out smoothly and I may take the drastic course of deleting my entire blog and starting with a backup Grr. It may or may not be because I customized version 1 so much and I've forgotten exactly what I did in coding. Anyway, I'm not satisfied with this design so I may do it... probably after we return from Greece.

But let's focus on other things now. Namely, this.

Pattern: My own, to be released next week
Yarn: Dale of Norway Heilo (100% Norwegian wool; 1.75oz/50g; 109yd/100m) in 020 Cream
Needles: US4 bamboo dpns

I like to revisit patterns I've knit because there's always a clever detail, or a bit of construction, that goes beyond the pattern. Case in point, Marnie's Nautilus hat, knit from the top down. I knit this hat for a friend some years ago, and I just loved the way the eyelets spiraled down from the center. Then there were the other hats I knit, from the bottom up, whose decreases spiraled up to the top. Isn't it amazing that a simple order of decreases creates such a beautiful pattern? With Marnie's pattern was my inspiration, I had myself a project.

I sought to incorporate a spiral, and cables, into a project. A hat is the perfect form, because it's a tube with a closed end. Now, I didn't bring along a truckload of yarn to Europe, just a box with 2-10 skeins of yarn each in different weights, enough to keep me occupied for our time here. (We're on a budget, a tight one, and I've only bought yarn once since we've been here. And that was on a sale.) I dug around and found a good, reliable yarn that would suit my purposes. I did a lot of charting and swatch knitting; this wasn't a cut-and-dried project at all. A misplace decrease on the chart would render my swatch wrong. Then, having the right increase to match the decrease was the challenge. I decided on the simplest of cables, a right-leaning cable that appeared to climb the spiral to the top.

There you have it.

I've received compliments from strangers when I've worn it outside. Funnily enough, the compliments come after I've walked past people, because it's the top detail that attracts people's attention. "Sehr schön!" is what I hear the most, and these from women who normally don't look up. There's no doubt, they must be knitters!

That's hello, in Turkish.

Mouseover images for captions!

We flew into Antalya from Nuremberg in the afternoon of January 17th, a bit of a chill in the air from recent rain. It was not to last, however, because the following day was sunny and warm. Because we were staying at the JoSiTo campground, we arranged for a pick-up at the airport, which was a good thing, as driving in Antalya was pretty crazy and without any established set of rules. To wit: on our way out of the city, to the right of us a bus filled to the brim with passengers gunned it when the traffic light turned green, and cut off three lanes of traffic to make a left turn. Yikes!

If I had to rate this trip among the ones we've taken over the years, it would be in the top ten. Climbing near Geyikbayiri was great. With the exception of three windy days, the weather was sunny, not too warm, perfect for climbing. Our accommodations at the campground were slightly better than basic but we didn't need anything more. The shower and kitchen facilities were steps away, we had a little heater and borrowed a few pots and plates, and the bar where we had some of our meals served Mediterranean cuisine. (Unfortunately, nothing truly Turkish.) The main crag was a laughable 30-second walk from our hut; we walked back for lunch almost every day. The other crags were within 10 minutes' walk, easy.

I woke up early on most mornings and strolled around, followed by the camp dogs, taking pictures. Beautiful golden light.

The Anatolia and Dragon walls are quite tall. You can see a pair of climbers on the right, on their second pitch (consider that a pitch is 65 - 98 feet long, or 6.5 to 10 stories tall). On the left, a pair of climbers are getting ready to do a route in the alcove.

The rock is limestone and ranges from brown to grey. I favor the brown limestone, because the texture is like stacked beads and relatively softer than the grey kind, which is sharp and spiky. Regardless, all types are gritty, and we suffered from gouges and numerous scratches all over our hands and arms from the rock. The climbing is mostly steep (overhanging) with tufas, pockets, and crimps, and everything is very well-bolted. The best part is that most routes are fairly new; the oldest routes were bolted in 2001 so nothing is polished! (On the downside, your fingertips will be aching after 3 days...)

Here's 8-time British champion Lucy posing for Tim on one of my projects. This is one of the most picturesque routes around, and when I tried it another climber was there taking my picture! The "crux" is at the bulge above Lucy's head; miss the clip and you fall 10-12 feet, which is what I did about 6 times! (Yes, how droll, Drop Zone is what it's called.) It's still a project, however; on my 6th try I almost made the clip, but fell, and I hit the rock and my quickdraws at the same time. Ouch! It knocked the wind out of me and I had to retreat. Two weeks later, I still have scabs and the shadow of a bruise as a reminder of that fall.

And German champion Marietta on her way to redpointing an 8a+ easily, on her second day. How strong is this woman? Fricking strong. She warmed up on a 7b+, a route that would have been my next project had I not fallen so hard. I so want her shoulders.

On rest days we either walked around looking at potential places to climb (such as Trebenna), or hitched a ride to the Sunday market. Sunday market was colorful and chaotic, with cars and pedestrians everywhere. Our second time, we were stopped right in the middle of buying strawberries by a man whose daughter had worked in Las Vegas!

Strawberries, oranges, crispy carrots, gigantic cabbages, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and "mountain tea" herbs were sold everywhere. We would indicate how much of something we wanted, and then hold out coins in our palm so that the vendor would take what he charged. We passed vendors selling fresh yogurt ladled into plastic bags, feta in skins, grains, and nuts. It made me think of Nigeria, this bustling market with its friendly vendors...

Lunch was gözleme and hot mint tea, served to us on a large metal tray. It was fun to eat the yummy spinach-filled dough with our hands, with peppers, tomato, and cucumber on the side. I bought some pul biber, which is ground pepper with a bit of salt; I've been looking for a spicy pepper since the German "hot" spices are, well, rather bland. It was unfortunate that Geyikbayiri and the campground are so isolated, being in the Taurus mountains. It would have been good, on a rest day, to go into town and chill at a café or walk around. We had to hitch rides both going down and up the mountain, the camp being 8 km from Çakirlar. We were picked up by a giggly family in a VW van, a cherry picker from the local power company, and a villager with a load of plastic bottles in the back of his truck. The challenge was not getting thrown out when we rounded a curve!

Days were spent lounging around after climbing, or watching other people climb. It's always a treat, always an inspiration, to watch someone who can just float up a 7a+ like a warmup, which for some people it is. Toward the end of our stay (we left on February 4) more people had started to arrive and at one point every wall behind the camp had a climber on it. Dinner at the bar was always good and full of conversation—mostly we heard German, or Dutch, because quite a bit of the clientele came from central Europe. There was one raucous evening when one of the camp hosts played magic tricks and we spent most of the night trying to figure a particular trick out.

I wish I could say that I onsighted or redpointed more, harder grades, but climbing doesn't work that way. Aside from the fact that we have lives outside of the sport, climbing involves a vast amount of patience and hard work. And mental fortitude. Sometimes BFF's day would be perfect and mine sucked, or vice versa. Sometimes the weather was awful, like when we had those windy days. Sometimes it was coping with our lingering colds, or the cough that would threaten to throw me off my climbs. These little things add up, and the crux is to stay positive. I'm happy to say, however, that I did do some significant climbs, and BFF really outdid himself on what the routesetter called one of his favorite climbs. Our Geyikbayiri trip was a success, and we're looking forward to returning sometime in the fall. Some of our most enjoyable moments, climbing and otherwise, came from there, and we're hungry for more of the same.

◊ View the Climbing in Turkey slideshow.