Fisherman's Cap and new buttons

Of the new designs I shared last time, the Fisherman's Cap is now published.

It's another design using sock weight yarn, this one knit in Trekking Hard Art. This one, in the middle size, weighs in at 55g, so one skein is plenty.

Admittedly, with all that ribbing on such fine yarn, it doesn't make for the quickest knitting project. Yet it's ideal for TV knitting, or picking up and putting down whilst on the go, where you don't mind some mindless stitching.

This one nearly didn't see the light of day, yet those helpful Twitter peeps persuaded me to publish the pattern. Even though it was virtually written and ready to go, I was all set for trashing it; by the time it was done I'd lost the love. Yet I was reminded that even though a design may not push my buttons, it may push others, and it's style certainly has a market. Thank you, Twitter peeps.

As always, it's a multi-sized Hat pattern. Knit in the round, bottom up, and it's provided in written format only (I felt that charting the ribbing was a little unnecessary). It's already gone onto my print distributors so if you'd prefer a hard copy to a PDF, go nag your LYS to order some.

There's some secret knitting been going on here again, and the current piece has had me rummaging through my button stash. As I was matching up buttons to Hat, I realised I hadn't shared the gorgeous ones that jumped into my pocket at KnitCamp:  

All of these beauties came from one seller - the Textile Garden. There's a mixture of wood, metal, horn and leather in there. Totally yummy.

I'm a fussy old thing when it comes to buttons, liking things a little out of the ordinary, and so it's not often I find a button seller who catches my attention. And this one totally did.

I had a little time to talk to the lady that runs the Textile Garden, and she told me of her adventures in sourcing her buttons and notions. She's travelled all over the world to find these beauties, and will often wait months and months for them to be made. She believes in finding the rare and unusual, and I reckon she's succeeded.

Some more secret knitting is about to be published, and I will talk more about it very soon, but you can see a quick peak of my project over here. I can tell you now, this is one project I was rather excited to be involved with!