Helter Skelter

So this is the wool I was sent by Cygnet yarns - every month they are running a competition on facebook, where the selected knitters/crocheters get sent wool and have to come up with a project with just one ball of it.

I was selected for next month's competition and was kind of hoping that I'd be sent sock yarn or something relatively fine - but I got chunky! I do tend to prefer thinner yarns so this was a step outside my real comfort zone...but sometimes that can be a good thing.

Each ball is just 100g so it didn't give me THAT much to work with -- crochet uses up more wool than knitting (so they say) so I opted for making a ribbed headband with a funky applique flower added.

This is me trying to work out a design that would work - I managed to make my headband with just a smidge of the yarn left; I made two of them (they sent me two balls of the yarn) and I had wool leftover in both cases.

I have so many 'yarn books' now and whenever I try and new yarn (like this one!) I write down the details in one of my books, including what hook I used, what shade etc. It makes things LOTS easier in the future, if I'm trying to track down a yarn that I used for a specific pair of wristwarmers or whatever.

This is one of my most favourite flowers to make but it uses up a TONNE of yarn! It gives a really lovely texture to a hat or headband though. I make it in two layers and then you sew the layers together to 'stack' the flower up.

And here's the finished headband :)

I'm not expecting to win the vote in the competition (you win 10 balls of your choice from Cygnet's range -- I'd LOVE to win) but I'm quite happy with how my headband turned out.