Two types of turban

I’ve been somewhat slack with the old blogging bizzo lately, haven’t I? This is maybe because I have been out and about the past few weekends, what with Open House Melbourne and staycations in Fairhaven and Rosebud. All the outdoor adventuring associated with these weekends required a fair amount of rugging up, so I unearthed my crochet hook and whipped up two turban-type things to keep my head warm.

This red one was an exercise in laziness (which, come to think of it, is actually impossible, because exercising is the opposite of being lazy, but I digress)…

About a million years ago I had bought some red wool with the idea of crocheting a mini-skirt. I had started making the waist section but it wasn’t working… and I then made a mini-skirt from a red woollen blanket, and did I really need two red woollen mini-skirts? Probably not. But I didn’t want to unravel all that work and couldn’t think of what else to make with the wool anyway, so I left it sitting in my wool stash. Turns out if you wrap a waist section of a crocheted skirt around your head, you can turn it into a turban, and that is what I did. It’s not the neatest job I’ve ever done as you can see the big stitches I used to join the overlapping ends, but it’s good enough for me.

Once the ends were secured, I crocheted around what was to be the crown of the turban, skipping a stitch every so often to decrease the circumference and shape the turban to fit my head. This was done pretty randomly while watching all the ye olde dastardly deeds and drama unfolding in Poldark so I don’t recall exactly what I did… I think I started off skipping a stitch every 10 stitches for one round, then every nine, then every eight… etc etc. There was a fair bit of unravelling and starting over again when I got to the very centre of the crown so that it didn’t go pointy, but that’s the beauty of crochet – you can pretty much freestyle a lot of the time which makes it well suited for someone like myself who is more used to remaking things by trial and error than fastidiously following a pattern (plus, crochet can be used to create coral reefs!).

The relative success of this red turban* inspired me to have a go at another one, this time in bobbly wool.

The main thing that makes a turban different from a normal beanie (and is so much more flattering to the face, I find) is that it comes to a peak in the centre of the forehead rather than running straight across. Instead of creating a ring and working around it as you probably would to crochet a beanie, I crocheted a long strip and joined it together about five centimetres from each end, then basically stitched around this shape. It’s hard to explain because I was making it up as I went along! But I think it turned out OK.

Initially I had thought I would make it into a turban but I was running out of wool so left it as a headband instead (which isn’t really noticeable from the front, so here is a side view).

Warning: nostalgic musing not exactly related to blog post follows
While we were staycationing in Rosebud, we had a late lunch at a café in Sorrento and I ordered a slice of passionfruit sponge cake, because when you are on holiday, it’s fine to have cake for lunch, and when was the last time you saw sponge cake at a café? It’s one of those things that seems to have nearly disappeared, along with fairy cakes (those ones with the “wings” cut out of the cupcake and filled with cream), fish cakes (as in, mashed potato and tuna covered in bread crumbs, not cakes shaped like marine animals) and myriad other creations that were staples of my grandmother’s culinary repertoire.

This got me thinking about all the stuff Grandma used to do that I took for granted as a child. Although I do somewhat regret never having learnt any of her cooking skills, it’s more of a pity that I never bugged her to pass on her crafting techniques – this was a lady who could spin raw fleece, dye it using gum leaves and onion skins, tat the finest lace as well as knit, sew, embroider and macrame. For some reason she did teach me to crochet when I was about six. Maybe she chose crochet because it is the craft that requires the least coordination (knitting requires two needles, crochet only one, and I am one of the least coordinated people I know)? Whatever the reason, I’m glad she did, but am also imagining what I could have made if she’d taught me the other things… just think how impressive homespun headwear or a turban made from tatting would look!

 

*The first time I wore the red turban at length I started getting a slight headache and realised it is maybe a little bit tight. Oops! It seems to have stretched a bit now, but it continues to leave an imprint all over my forehead that apparently makes me look like Worf. (As a non-Star Trek fan  I had to have this explained to me).
Anyway, I can only remove it once I am away from the public eye, or among Star Trek fans where resembling a Klingon is not necessarily a bad thing. Just something to consider if you were thinking of making a similar piece of headwear!