Christmas Tree for a little girl

I really want to work on as many hats and things as I can churn out while my little mind and fingers are willing.  I had I Love This Yarn (Sparkle) in Grapette and the White, as well as a LOT of buttons I've been collecting.  With a little photo inspiration I set to work.

This hat is going up on Etsy in a few moments but it's a baby girl's hat.  Approx. 13 inches in circumference and 5 1/2inches in height.  It should fit a standard newborn and possibly up to a 3-4 month old. 

I love using this I Love This Yarn and Sparkle collection is soooo pretty.  Sometimes what I do is surf the net, google, etsy, whereever and I save photos.  When I see the one I like, if it has the owner information, I save that as well.  If my item is just like that, I contact them and ask permission to use the "idea".  My Jack Skellington hat...Alissa at CutieHats.  It was so funny, I convo'd her on Etsy and asked if I could create a hat like hers.  She thought I meant use her photo and was super nice trying to explain how hard it is for her to do the work, set up the pics, etc.  I said "oh no no no, I mean I want to look at your photo and come up with my own pattern".  After a good laugh she basically said 'yeah, duh, it's what we do as artist.  We look at things, get ideas and create.  Go nuts.'  Basically. :)

In this case the only thing similar is it has a tree on it and uses yarn.  Either way I think this will make a really great hat for some little girl for Christmas.

Bearded Hats are the bomb

I'm not a huge fan of Larry The Cable Guy but I do agree when he said "That's funny, I don't care who you are."

This is our eldest, whom I call Legs because he's a half foot taller than me.  His name is very Norse and he loves bearded hats, so I wasn't too surprised when he came to me and asked for a helmet with horns and an orange beard.  We are a family of Pittsburgh Steelers fans and used that when we had discussed colors for the hat.


I attempted a bearded hat many moons ago.  About a year and a half ago I think.  The hat itself was brown, the beard was sewn to it, unmovable.  Before long the beard was stretched and needed tightened.  My son wore it to school (half mile walk in south eastern PA) so it ended up frizzy and full of fuzzballs.  I added an extra strip around the bottom of the hat with a darker color lined around the edges to strengthen where I had stitched the beard.  The popcorn beard wasn't very impressive.  I made it up on the fly as I didn't have a good understanding of the stitch.

After being asked for the hat I searched for some that were similar.  Cutie Hats (link on the lower right) had one but I wanted multiple colors and horns smaller and more similar to the red one eyed monster I'd done before.  Also I wanted a couple of features no one would have.  Buttons.  Not just on the beard, that's been done.  No no, I wanted removable horns.  Sounds nuts.  Yeah,  I know.  But the cup like bands around the bottom of the horn was the key.  I could make that, stitch buttons to it and stitch the horn on after that.  I placed two buttons under each horn and one on each side of the head, in the hat, for the beard. 

I did have a good reason for this madness though.  We currently live in the country, so no more long walks or need for the beard all the time.  The Eldest rides the bus beginning at 6:50am until 7:30 or so.  He may not want to wear the horns or be allowed to on the bus.  Once he's at school, hats off until 3pm.  So I wanted to make something that's similar to a beanie, look cool, but also functions with funny horns and beard. 

Legs came home from school yesterday with both horns at the front of his head.  He's a weirdy but he loves his hat.  When asked "where did you get that?", his reply was "Well you can't get it from Walmart, I'll tell you that right now!" :p  He's heard me fuss enough about cheap knit hats killing the knitting circles and folks at home working their fingers til they're sore.  That's our boy.

Hello there Kitty cat

While I love (LOVE) anime and lots of Japanese kawaii, I never understood the fascination with Hello Kitty. I've never watched it, though it's been around since 1974. I've seen lots of crochet out there recently for Hello Kitty though and a friend of mine had asked if I could do such a thing. I wasn't all that sure but figured I could try. I did indeed crochet the hat and think it turned out pretty well.

I used Red Heart Yarns throughout. Nothing too fancy. I did, however, take special care with it because I've seen some that just didn't take the cake. It's easy to make things look sloppy on a white crochet hat. The bow was simply a strip of left to right crochet. I suppose about 10 dc back and forth for about 4 inches. I made a small strip for the middle and single crochet them together in the back. I thought that was easier, in case something happens to the bow, it's a simple replacement. Plus it makes the corners stand up well for a good crisp edge. For the ears I did a crab stitch over them.

I looked at a lot of photos via google before I settled on one I liked. Generally I like to find one that I love and mimic it. Be it a hand drawing, a sticker from the 80s or movie poster. If I think I can do it, I do. Or take bits from one or two that I like. It's art. I'm not always perfect with it and don't always think it's a great job but I like to make people happy. The young teen girl was overjoyed with it. I've never met her but her mother says she loves me. :p To make a kiddo that happy with some yarn and knots, makes me incredibly happy. :)

Snowman Hat

Last year I made a couple of adorable hats for a friend of mine at work.  Her son was serving over seas and was able to come home just after Thanksgiving for a visit.  He had a daughter around 6 and son about 6 month-1 year old.  I created a little snow man hat for him using Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn Sparkle in Royalty blue.  For nearly a year I forgot about that hat and put it out of my mind.  Recently I found photos of the hats and created another similar.  This is the hat I put up today in my Etsy Shop 

What I'd really like to do is make several of them and the girls hat as well, that was a red hat, sparkle, with pink and white snow flakes.  I hope to get back into the swing of it in the coming weeks and make someone some nice gifts. :)