Baby Dimitri and Puppy Lovey

May 1st brought news that our newest nephew had been born.  Baby Dimitri weighed in at over nine pounds!  I wanted to make him something special and I'd wanted to try my hand at making a Lovey but I just wasn't sure what to do, so I sat down and started to crochet.  I'm not much for freestyle crochet because I feel I need a general pattern to follow but this just flowed.  I still wanted to make more so I made him a matching hat.  Yarns used were Vanna's Choice Barley and Grey Marble as well as I Love This Yarn (yes I really do) in Dark Country Blue and Grey Mist.

Headbands, get your headbands here

I've been doing small random projects recently and it wasn't until my wonderful hubby mentioned that I should make a chicken hat that I even thought about headbands again.  I did the puffy pinwheel one but I had not thought about doing another.  I created a small chicken headband and had Lil Bit try it on for me.  I hid most of his face as he HATES trying on the hats for pics.  (If you don't remember the infamous Leia pictures, keep scrolling)

Now I've created a pattern on @Home Ninja for the Chicken Dance Headband and a more docile, patriotic headband.  Here's a preview  :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.