Two hats & a looped scarf

My inlaws hold a Christmas bash every year. Part of the deal is that in exchange for some great food, you bring some kind of outdoor wearable: gloves, scarves, hats, etc. This year I decided to cast on and work my way through part of my yarn stash.

Two hats & a cowl

The cowl, from the back.

Hat to go with the cowl. I ended up not being a huge fan of the pattern. It’s slightly slouchy and looks more impressive on the head than on the table.

Little Red Riding Hood Beret

Slouchy, with a little bit of texture

The scarf & matching hat were made from 1 skein of Homespun multicolor (which one it was I don’t know… such is the casualty of a yarn stash). I made up the patterns as I went along for both of them. The hat is mostly just double-crochet until the edging.

Looped Scarf Pattern

Row 1: Cast on 17. Turn. Skip first stitch and single crochet (SC) in each stitch (16 stitches.).

Row 2: Chain 4. Counts as first triple crochet (TC). TC in each SC. (16 stitches)

Row 3: Chain 2. Counts as first SC. SC in each TC. (16 stitches)

Row 4: Chain 4. Counts as first triple crochet (TC). TC in each SC. (16 stitches)

Row 5: Chain 2. Counts as first SC. SC in each TC. (16 stitches)

Row 6: Chain 3. Counts as first DC. DC in each SC. (16 stitches)

Row 7 – 8: Chain 3. Counts as first DC. DC in each DC. (16 stitches)

Row 9: Chain 2. Counts as first SC. SC in each DC. (16 stitches).

Repeat rows 2 – 9 two more times. For finishing, fold scarf in half. Match opposite corners (so, the bottom of one side meets the top of the other side). This will give you the twist in the scarf. If you don’t want the twist, simply match corners. Stitch sides together.

Little Red Riding Hood Beret

The second hat is a pattern that I’ve made a few times from Ravelry called the Little Red Riding Hood Beret. It’s such a classy hat!

Records Central

So, I saw this post on Lifehacker earlier this week about using a Raspberry Pi and an old LCD to make a central activity center. I don’t have any old LCDs kicking around, nor any Raspberry Pies, but I did have an old Nook Color kicking around. It’s the Nook Color First Generation, so it’s pretty old and set in its ways by now. It’s also been replaced by a combination of an e-ink Nook Glow and an ASUS Transformer Prime. So my Nook Color has sat in a drawer, collecting dust, for about a year.

Now? It’s been ressurected and has new life! A friend of mine tossed on Cyanogenmod, and I automated a schedule with Tasker (which is a FANTASTIC app, by the way. If you don’t have it, I highly recommend getting it. Especially now that the price has dropped — it used to be about $6, now about $2.50) that switches between a weather app and a calendar app. It also plays a notification sound before scheduled events in the calendar between certain hours, and I’m working on a way to use the volume rockers to navigate through a list of apps.

For us, this is incredibly useful. Both the hubby and I keep non-traditional schedules that fluctuate pretty regularly. Instead of asking each other every day “When do you work? What are you doing?” we can take a quick glance at the calendar and already know. It’ll also help both of us keep track of joint events.

I still need to work on some cable management but in the meantime, it seems to be a pretty great solution and a pretty good use of old tech.

We don’t need no stinkin’ cable management!