Aran-style beanies for the Alice Springs Beanie Festival

Aran-style knitted garments are in vogue again. Diamond and double cable textured knit stitches look good on all sorts of beanies - from close fitting surf beanies to elegant berets.


Aran-style beanies for travelers - designed and knitted by me for Beanie Central, Alice Springs Beanie Festival, 2008. Pattern for the surf-style Aran beanie is available at Bandana Heads.

Crocheted beanies for Alice Springs Beanie Festival

Every traveler needs a unique beanie that suits their personality. "Johnny Reb" is a grey cap-style hat with bill. Johnny Reb is the name they gave to the Confederate soldier who fought in the American civil war.
"Sedona" is an oversized beanie in turquoise and dusty tans of the Arizona desert region.

Crocheted beanies for travelers - designed and crocheted by me for Beanie Central, Alice Springs Beanie Festival, 2008.

Ear-flap hats for Alice Springs Beanie Festival

Ear-flap Beanies for travelers - designed and knitted by me for Beanie Central, Alice Springs Beanie Festival, 2008. Patterns available at Bandana Heads.

Peruvian inspired travel hats - Men and boys in the Andes Mountains knit and wear the traditional chullo with ear flaps. They embellish their hats with colorful customized motifs.

Wool beanies for Alice Springs Beanie Festival

Beanies for travelers - designed and knitted by me for Beanie Central, Alice Springs Beanie Festival, 2008

Hemp beanies for Alice Springs Beanie Festival

Beanies designed for travelers - created by me for Beanie Central, Alice Springs Beanie Festival, 2008

Pink Ribbon Breakfast for Breast Cancer Research

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month world wide. The pink ribbon symbolises hope and awareness for those affected by breast cancer. The Australian National Breast Cancer Foundation is having another Pink Ribbon Breakfast campaign this year. Friends, family and workmates will gather together in homes, offices, pubs and parks, to celebrate the achievements of breast cancer research and raise funds for further research. The pink theme gives a sense of festival. Pink eggs, pink clothes, pink hair and pink decorations.

My friend Leigh is hosting one of these brekkies on Sunday October 23 at the Breakfast Creek Hotel in Brisbane Queensland. Her all-female jazz band BZAZZ is set to entertain from 8.00 am. Some of the band members have had breast cancer and their music is an inspiring celebration of survival.

Leigh thought that one of my pink crochet bucket hats designed especially for chemo patients would make a good raffle prize. I finished it yesterday and entrusted it to USPS and Australia Post to get it there safely and on time. The hat features a white frangipani.....it's my flower of choice. I still call Australia home and beautiful frangipanis abound in sunny Queensland.

Crochet bucket hat with Capricorn brim

Hemisphere Matters - I'm back home in Athens Georgia USA where leafless trees silhouette the winter sky. I'm missing the heat and color of a southern hemisphere summer. Traveling from summer to winter is not easy. Three months of sun, singlets and sandals living close to the Tropic of Capricorn does not prepare you for the numbing winter temperatures of North America.

While I was in Queensland I designed a new hat. It's a lot like my Melbourne bucket-style hat for travelers but it has a wider brim. I have named this brim the Capricorn brim - it offers shade on a sunny day. It's available in neutral colors like khaki and black but I have since created a wild looking one called "A Key West kind of sunset". I have adorned it with a frangipani to overstate the tropical theme.




The e-pattern for the Capricorn brim hat is now available from my travel headwear blogspot.

Melbourne, an urban getaway

Melbourne, Australia - is a fabulous city to visit. Food, fashion and fun for all ages. Melbourne and Sydney rival for the international tourist dollar; "We have stopped the Sydney stopover" is in bold print on many of the trams. Melbourne is colder than Sydney and Brisbane in the winter months (June-July-August) and people dress more formally with overcoats, hats and scarves. This year the new fashion colour was pink...all shades and tones of pink. Pink scarves, hats and jumpers (sweaters) brightened the urban landscape. Still the predominant colour was black. Afterall black goes with everything in a winter wardrobe. In order to blend in with the stylish Melbourne winter scene I designed and crocheted a black bucket hat with a small brim in lightweight cotton yarn. It is probably the best crochet hat I have made so far....and I've made a few on my travels around the world. Its shape, weight, solid colour and soft comfortable texture make it a perfect hat for the urban traveler.