Hiya everyone!  SciFi Chris posting again. 

First up is a reminder that the Steel City Yarn Crawl is quickly approaching.  The yarn crawl will be from July 31 to August 9.  Its expanded this year to include eleven yarn stores, up from the 7 shops that participated last year.  Most are in Allegheny county, but a few are as far out as Beaver, Harmony, Grove City, and Ligonier.  This year’s passport includes all the addresses, store hours, and a handy map showing the locations of the shops in relation to each other.

The cost of the Steel City Yarn Crawl is $10.  That gets you the passport, 11 raffle tickets, and a tote bag.  You can get additional raffle tickets at participating stores by buying things there.  If you manage to complete the entire crawl, you turn in your passport for an additional prize drawing.  Register at any of the participating shops, which are listed in the picture below.

The passport isn’t the only thing that has improved.  The tote bag is heavy canvas and has very spiffy orange accents.  Much nicer than last year’s basic canvas bag.

Here’s a link about the Yarn Crawl on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/steelvalleyyarncrawl  and on Ravelry http://www.ravelry.com/events/steel-city-yarn-crawl

Here’s a link to my post about last year’s Yarn Crawl  http://threeriverscrochet.blogspot.com/search?q=steel+city+yarn+crawl

Three Rivers Crochet is doing a summer crochet along!  Our last crochet along was in October, making skull shawls.   Since it’s a summer crochet along making sun hats seemed like a good idea.  After some discussion at the Knit and Crochet in Public day, we settled on the pattern Star Sun Hat by Jessie Rayot.  Its available for free on Ravelry, although the link I’m giving is direct to her site.  She also has a variation on her pattern for kid’s sizes.  

Notes on the pattern: 

First, it calls for nylon wire called brimlock.  I couldn’t find any, so I went with 20 gauge jewelry wire from Joann’s.  It comes in a wide range of colors and seems to work in getting the brim to hold its shape.  Also, the pattern just says 3 skeins.  The pattern is for three colors.  Making the yellow hat, I discovered that one 4 oz skein of Sugar n Cream super size is enough for the main color, if you are doing the accent colors.  The accent colors use much less than one skein each.  For the purple hat, which has almost no accent colors, it takes more. I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly how much because I got one of the 'one pounders' of cotton yarn for it.  My guess would be about 6 oz, but no guarantee on that, its just an estimate.   

The only row of the pattern that I had trouble with was round 27.  It took a few rereading and examining the photo to figure out that it wants you to basically make a “W” in the same stitch (tc, ch 1, tc, ch 1, tc) then make four “V” (tc, ch 1, tc) in the same stitch, repeating that pattern for the entire round.  

The hat took me about five hours total to complete.  Your time will of course vary depending on how fast or slow you crochet. 

http://jessieathome.com/star-sun-hat-free-crochet-pattern/

Finally, here’s a photo from this year’s Knit and Crochet in Public day.  Although 3RC knits and crochets in public every week at our Saturday meetings at Panera Bread near Magee Hospital (from 2pm to 5pm), we change it up on KCIP day and head to Schenley Park in Oakland.