Baby hat pattern and a new crochet stitch

I've been doing a bit of crochet lately. Mainly because I've been working on a lacey alpaca shawl and the pattern is so complicated that its not really fun to knit. I love the way it looks, but I don't really enjoy the stress of getting the pattern right. This leads to procrastination, which leads to a simple crochet project (or two.. ok three).

eight acres: front post crochet ear warmer and drink bottle holder

front post crochet in my ear warmer

A friend asked for a baby hat as a baby shower present, and when I was looking for a suitable pattern I found this textured toddler hat, which uses a front post crochet stitch. It took me a few false starts and unravelling (and finding it on youtube - this is a good link too), but eventually I mastered the front post and finished the hat (and forgot to take a photo of it, I didn't have a suitable model, so you'll just have to take my word for it and maybe we will get some pics when the baby fits the hat!).

ear warmer

As I was still not feeling like finishing the shawl, I made myself an ear warmer (I prefer these to hats) using alternating bands of front post crochet and double crochet. Then I made a drink bottle cover. Mostly because I don't want the lovely bright pink paint to get knocked off my drink bottle, but it would also help with some insulation of the metal bottle.

How to make the ear warmer band

Chain about 20 stitches (depending how wide you want the band and what needle and yarn you're using) and crochet a few rows of double crochet. Then switch to front post crochet on every second stitch for a few rows. The trick here is that you have to to backwards front post crochet's on the row coming back so that the front of the work looks right. I made the hat first, so I got lots of practice doing forward front post crochets going round and round, so it was a bit of a shock when I had to turn the work and figure out how to do them backwards, so it might be better to start with a round pattern first.

How to make a bottle holder

I used a magic ring and 10 double crochets to start my bottle holder. The two doubles in each stitch to make the circle. You might have to vary this depending on the size of your bottle, but that was enough rows to get me started on the rest of the bottle holder. From there I did a few rows of double crochet with no further increases, just round and round and then I started on the front post crochets every second stitch until I got to the top of the bottle. I finished off with double crochet as that seems to pull a bit tighter around the neck of the bottle. I got the size just right (by fluke) so that the bottle holder stays on perfectly.

And how is that shawl going? I've used half the alpaca yarn and I thought I may have made some mistakes, nothing like the great unravelling hole that brought the whole project to the halt last time around.

What do you think? Do you use front post crochets? Or other crochet stitches for texture? Do you procrastinate and start another fun project when one gets hard or boring?

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here . You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!). I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months. I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post! New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog. I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people. I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts. I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo. Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about chicken tractor

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive! Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap. And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps. I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment. One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap. As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances). When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather. I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap. It also contributes a tan or brown colour to

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