Alright me Ansome?

Well, hello and good day! Or, if you’re from the West Country, alright me ‘ansome?!

There are unsubstantiated rumours that the Ottery St Mary born poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge would often greet people with “Alright, me ‘ansome” as a way of saying hello. Whether he actually addressed people with this local greeting is a mystery; it’s fun to think that he might have but my money says it’s a made up lie!

Ansome is a crochet hat pattern that is essentially two hats in one. Having made a hat with my new obsession, the puff stitch, I had plenty of yarn left to make a second hat. Both hats start with the same pattern but end up as two different styles.

The written pattern for Ansome is available on Ravelry HERE and Etsy HERE. There is 25% off until the last day of November.

Crochet Puff stitches

Ansome is now available on Ravelry & Etsy but it has been a couple of months in the making. For a while I have been sketching lots of designs using different sorts of crochet puff stitches. The first idea came to me at the beginning of the year. That one turned into the Wheatfields shawl, which is now a fully fledged pattern in its own right. You can find it HERE and HERE. It’s a fabulous combo of hand dyed 4 ply merino and lace weight mohair.

Working up puff stitches is really calming and rhythmic and they are awesome in all kinds of projects. They look fancy but are relatively fun and easy to do. However, do make sure you have a good crochet hook. I used a Knitpro hook, which is not normally my first choice as my hands are too big for the short handle, but it does have a good hooky bit! It helps when pulling through all the loops so try some out before you begin your project.

Potentially there are more puff stitch designs waiting in the wings for me but I think I will revisit those next year. For now I’m happy to focus on these crochet hats, which have come together in a way that felt like a breeze. They’re just meant to be!

Devonia Yarn

We’re in November now and headed towards chillier weather in the northern hemisphere. When is a better time to release a hat pattern!? It has worked out quite nicely; I don’t think I had any intention of coming up a hat design. It wasn’t on my list of things to do but sometimes things just work out that way.

The catalyst was a single picture shared on Instagram. I saw a collection of Devonia mini skeins from John Arbon Textiles and fell a little bit in love with the colours. Instantly I knew they should be a crochet hat. So I made one!

Devonia is what I call a proper woolly wool. Warm, comforting and with the essential sheepy smell that I could breathe in all day. It’s a combination of Bluefaced Leicester (an all time fave) and Blueface Exmoor (from Devon, proper job). It also has Wendsleydale & Romney lustre breeds, which, if I’m right, add the shiney sheen that I always think looks super pretty and works really well with crochet.

I am very lucky in that, when I left a comment on the IG pic, to say it was a stunning combo of shades, the super smashin team from JAT asked if I would like to try them. This doesn’t happen everyday. I have no idea why they are willing to support my crochet adventures, I just know that I am very grateful to get the yarn support. Thanks Sonja!!

Maybe it is because it isn’t the first time. Remember the Grainbow shawl from a couple of years ago? And the infamous Dreckly mittens? That’s a triple whammy of JAT yarns: Knit By Numbers, Yarnadelic, and now Devonia! How about Harvest Hues next!?

Devonia comes in DK and 4 ply weights, and 25g minis and 100g skeins. That is one of the best things about JAT yarns, lots of options and versatility. For Ansome, you need 100g of DK for the main colour plus your colourful minis for the contrasts. Oh and I almost forgot! One of the reasons that the guys were sharing Devonia pics is because there are news shades that have just been released. I used Wood Smoke as my main colour, which is one of the new ones.

Crochet Hats

Having that much yarn meant there was too much left over to do my usual trick (hide it in the cupboard and struggle for stashbusting ideas). There was only one thing for it, if JAT can have all the options, so can I! Ansome mainly refers to the star of the show, which is the puff stitch hat but the remaining yarn was calling out too. It wanted to be striped up as a “plain” crochet hat. So there are two patterns here and you can make both!

The pattern has three size options and there’s freedom to add more rows if you want extra slouch. I made the medium size for both hats and the puff hat has just a little bit of slouch as there are more rows. A few subtle changes like that and you have two different styles of crochet hat! How good is that?!

The puff stitch hat was blocked too, and that added to the drape. Unsure about blocking crochet hats? I certainly was. So I did what I normally do and guessed. I blew up a balloon inside Ansome to what seemed like my head size and then gave the hat a light spray of water. Once it had dried, boom, perfect hat!

The End

And that is pretty much all you need to know about these new crochet hat designs! Can you think of anything you’d like to know? If so, please do get in touch. In the meantime check them out of Ravelry HERE and Etsy HERE.

Ta very much. I would end by using a Devon way of saying goodbye but I can’t remember any phrases.