Cornice Construction

Cornice Construction I

In this week after Thanksgiving I find myself cooking. Although we go somewhere else for Thanksgiving, I still do a turkey, stuffing, and potatoes on Sunday.  This means that we are rarely done with the turkey before are bored with turkey. Then I make turkey stock, followed by turkey chili. We also needed tomato sauce so I can make lasagne, so I made that too. So I had a lot of pots boiling on Sunday and Monday.

I always end up thinking about why I do this: My mother grew up in the depression and passed that frugality on to all her children. I eat leftovers for lunch, and you would not believe how much product I can get out of a tube after it appears to be empty (seriously, five days from my moisturizer!). The other motivation is that this is all very creative and satisfying, especially in a season that I find rather overwhelming. I also save some things–just because they seem too good to throw out: bags, foil, plastic bags, cardboard (nice cardboard), oh, okay, I save boxes too. So as I’ve got pots bubbling, of course I’ve also got knitting things going on at my end of the couch.

I’ve blogged about making Cornice, and about my plan to do a mirror image Cornice to use up yarn. Yup that’s how this relates to all my cooking and saving. My plan was to make a second Cornice hat, using the lighter weight (this yarn is called Cashmere and is worsted weight) as the main yarn and the heavier weight (called Cashmere Aran) as the secondary yarn. I did that on Friday and Saturday. Did a different finishing flourish on the second Cornice. I decided to document the blocking process. I was really curious to see what the difference in blocked gauge was, although to the naked eye, it wasn’t much.

Cornice Construction II

Finishing is the last stage of construction–think of it as the seasoning. Some of it goes in while you’re working away, then there is the final finishing.

• A quick measurement told me what size disk I needed for the top.  I used a dessert plate to make my template, pulled out my old pattern scissors to cut my cardboard (I have a small drawer filled with white cardboard sheets from products I’ve purchased). The scissors need a little oil, but they do not balk at cardboard. First rule of thumb when wanting to cut accurately is to cut off the excess. It makes it so much easier to cut.
• Then I placed the disk into the crown of the hat. I didn’t wet block this–I used my steam iron–so I shot a bunch of steam into the crown and smoothed the edges to get a nice round top.
• Next up–blocking the side outward. This pattern has a tendency to pull in because of the slipped stitches, so I put a hand towel into the hat (disk still in place) and arranged it so it pushed the sides outward, and the bottom trim moved inward.  Again, lots of steam to help open out the pattern.
• Fluffed the loops into a pleasing pattern that showcases the shaping on the top.
• Rolled my hand towel to fit inside the hat without tension, then perched it on a fabric roll and left it to rest.

Cornice Revelations

I took gauge and there is not a lot of difference. Details when I do an in-depth look at this pattern.  When I arranged my two mirrors to take photos I realized I’d done different numbers of pattern rows.  I preferred the depth of the second cornice, so I need to adjust the first version. And I made a mistake that needs to be corrected. I’ve ripped back to fix it tonight. If you get my newsletter, you can examine the photo and let me know what you think the mistake is. There is a free pattern for someone!

How much yarn did I use?  Not enough to finish up my two skeins.  I had 85g of the Cashmere and 45g of the Cashmere Aran left when I started the second Cornice. I still have 45g of the Cashmere and 23g of the Cashmere Aran. I’ve starting Mitts!

Remember, if you use Pinterest, you can pin any of my photos directly from my blog.