I Love You For Your Mind!

Last night while messing around with yarn, again, I began thinking about fun things for Valentines Day.  I've already got some Rose Rings but haven't received any feedback on those.  I did go ahead and put them on Etsy but it's a flooded market right now so getting noticed isn't going to happen.  So, what to do, what to do for Valentines Day?

I'VE GOT IT!                   BRAINS!
I looked up a hilarious video by Chaotic Desk. Went over to her page, grabbed my I Love This Yarn, Stonewash Coraline and got at it!  The brain itself is only about 4 inches long, 2.5 inches wide and on the bottom is a small heart made from string and stitched on.  They are gently stitched together so you don't lose your mind. :D

Really though, who wouldn't love brains for Valentine's Day?  I mean, right?  Okay, so it's not your every day gift but you can give it to a guy or a gal.  School kids can give it to one another.  Anyone in the Science or Medical field would like it.  It's fun and super soft yarn!  If you want a chance at one, message me or head over to My Etsy Store!

**All items on my Etsy Shop through the end of February are FREE SHIPPING and I'm donating the profits toward my son and his class.  My son, 16, is in his high school's Advanced Choir and they are hoping to attend Festival Disney in April.  They've done a lot of fundraising and none of the appx 30 children are paid off enough to go. Anything would be appreciated. :D

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.

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. :)

Pinwheel Flower Wrap

I've called it HeadWrap, HairWrap, etc but none of them quite fit.  It's not a hat or a head band so I'm unsure what to call it.  What it mostly showcases, however, is the Pinwheel Flower.  I had a request for another one and after making a flower in red with white trim I realized it was more of a holiday looking flower.  I wanted to do another one a little more low-key. 

So I did these two.  The one on the right is just Red Heart Super Saver Yarn in Red with the Love This Yarn White Sparkle on the edges.  While the one above is done in Red Heart Super Saver in Buff Fleck with Red Heart Eco-Ways recycled blend yarn in Fern.

I didn't realize that it matched the button but it looks great together. :)  I'm very satisfied with that and delivered both yesterday.

HeadWrap in all it's glory

I will detail what yarns I used in the "making of" but for now I'll start with this...

This is my new HeadWrap.  I had gotten a text message this summer from a friend who saw the pinwheel flower design and had to have it.  It is beautiful but I'd never seen any such thing and had no idea how to make it.  I set out to the Great Google Machine and found several free patterns.  None of which did I actually understand. 

I'm slow.  I get it. ;)  So I used ideas from doing crocheted leaves in previous projects and put them into making this.  I thought the edging needed to be something a bit more special and I once again hit the net.  This is the Crab Stitch edging.  I find that to be hilarious.  I've never heard of any such thing but learned to do it via Youtube and Teresa.  I don't know her but I do like her videos. 

I used very chunky yarn, the Super Bulky (6) Lion Brand Yarn Hometown USA and this one is in Houston Cream.  I used Red Heart Super Saver Yarn (medium 4) for the flower itself because it's certainly easier to handle but it also keeps form a bit better.

I finished the project and surprise mailed it and two flowers to my friend.  She was only a week or two from giving birth to her son and taking leave from work so it was a nice surprise.  I make mine so the end there has at least two loops to go around the button I have on the other end.  This is to make it tighter or looser depending on who is wearing it.  Also, yarn stretches after a while and it may need to be pulled tighter at some point. 

The flowers also come off. :O WHA? YES! The flowers are interchangeable!  BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!  I'm selling the pattern on my @Home Ninja Etsy Shop!  MORE? YES!  It's only $5 for the pattern!  I'm going to try to set up the Visa section so it accepts it and not just paypal.  I really hope you guys enjoy it. :)