Finished Hats - Custom Work

Lately I've been getting some orders for my shop - fall is a great time  to buy. As well I've had some custom orders, here are some samples:

Newfoundland Fisherman's Cap

Ladies Hollywood Turban

Adult sized Owl Hat

Finished Hat - Traditional Newfoundland Hat

I found an old "passed down from generation to generation" hat pattern for a Newfoundland Salt-n-Pepper cap and so I decided to give it a try in cream coloured acrylic yarn for my mom (she's sensitive to wool). Here's the finished cap:

It turned out pretty good and my mom loves it. Mission accomplished.

Except what she doesn't know is that I HATED the pattern. In fact, when I was done making the hat, I threw the pattern in the garbage(well actually in the recycling-but you get the point). Now she wants another one in a different colour. Hmm, I guess I could knit it again. I'll have to think about it.

Do ever have that? Something you make that you didn't like but others did?

Cream Felt Hats

here are the two wool felted hats that I made:

I used two different yarns to see which felted better. My mom had found a buyer for one and was going to keep the other one for herself. It's possible I might start making a few more of these, although knitting first and then felting isn't usually the best way to go when making a felt hat.

Charcoal Felted Bowler

Here's a photo of the dark charcoal felted bowler I made just before New Year's: 

This was a custom order. Then she changed her mind and wanted a cream coloured hat instead. Back to the drawing board (and yarn shop!)

I knitted as fast as I could. Then I put on some rubber dishwashing gloves and filled the sink with warm water, added some soap and rinsed and rubbed and felted that hat.

Then I wan't happy how the wool felted, so I started all over again.

I would show you but my phone battery just died so you will have to wait until tomorrow.

along with other yarn porn

My new favourite baby hat

I made this little brown hat a while back, and have spent weeks trying to figure out how to adorn it, then I came across this cute little lion applique and felt I found the perfect piece!

The applique was to be ironed on the fabric but I wasn't sure how well it would stick to the acrylic yarn, especially when acrylic doesn't like to be ironed (it actually loses all it's elasticity and becomes "dead"which isn't always desirable). But while search around a sewing box, I found a spool of invisible thread and so I've sewn on the applique as well. And the thread really is invisible!

Baby Snowmen are very popular!

A customer contacted me to make get my little snowman top hat with a red bow and a scarf as she wanted to recreate this photo: 

Today she sent me this photo (sorry I can't make it bigger than this) 

These little baby snowman hats are very popular, I think I've made about 6 of them so far, in different colours. I just shipped another one off today.

The Fox Says....

Currently there is a video going around with a catchy line of "What does the fox say?" Here it is, if you haven't seen it:

 Before that dang video came to the surface, I had made this fox hat... now I can answer the question...

A Blip on my Radar

It's crazy. I was checking my statistics on my Etsy store, and I had a spike of 160 visits on September 17th. I can't for the life of me figure out what caused that spike. I didn't post anything new that day and can't find what they were looking at - was it particular item or phrase? If I knew I could capitalize on it (maybe). The spike didn't result in any sales - again, possibly valuable marketing information - but I am pleased to say that about a week later I did sell two hats to someone in Seoul, Korea. That is now the farthest place I've shipped. Halfway around the world.

What lays ahead? I'm ready to find out.

Chocolate Addictions

Oh? Did that get your attention?? Just teasing you. That's the name of another Etsy Treasure that featured my camouflage beanie - see the collection here.

Looking for a wee leprechaun

With less than a month until St Patrick's day, I thought I'd get this little hat made up

It would also look cute on a pets, I just couldn't get Eco to keep it on her head besides, as you've seen, she's a terrible photography model - she gets all squinty!

EDITED FEBRUARY 27TH - Good news! This hat has been sold and it's already begun it's journey to Florida! I hope I get to see pictures of it in use.

Tipping My Top Hat

Just finished these crocheted top hats for my shop - they can fit babies, toddlers, kids - even adults and pets!

Little Brown Bear

Gee I'm just all over the place, I've gone from the sea to the forest - here's today's completed project - a little brown boucle pom-pom hat that looks like a little bear cub

Must be all that cold sunny weather we're having, it brought the little bear out of hibernation!

Valentine Kitty Hat + Ground Hog Day!

I just finished this cute Valentine Kitty hat which fits kids with heads from 19-22 inches:

I did not write this pattern, it came from Knot Your Nanas Crochet, but I think it turned out pretty good. My favourite part of the pattern with the curly-cues on the ear flaps - although Jp wanted to know if the hat was for Hasidic children

Since I now have two styrofoam heads - one adult and one baby, I fashioned a hook out of a coat hanger so I could suspend them by the hole in the bottom and hang them as they were so light they would often topple from where I tried to keep them and I didn't want them to get damaged. You can see that the adult head has a nice bang to her nose (although I kinda chuckle because it's the same place I have a scar on my nose from a fall about 4 years ago). As I hung the head up I realized, I just made the  Owl and the Pussy Cat. Too bad I didn't colour co-ordinate them.

And in other news, EtsyBaby is having a Valentine's promotion - a free shipping event - and I am one of 14 vendors on the list. Fingers crossed it brings some traffic  - and SALES - to my shop.

Today it's finally sunny, so I think I'll be outside re-shooting some of my hat pictures with my new baby head. Thank you sun - it's always nice when you come to visit.

And Happy Groundhog Day -6 more weeks of crafting my friends, so if you feel like crafting - here's two groundhog projects - phone case  and this cute stuffy

Happy Birthday Janis

As I was finishing this week's project, I was listening to radio station Jazz 91.1 San Mateo, California (on the interwebs). The program was celebrating the life of Janis Joplin who would have been 70 years old today. It was interesting hearing her range of styles of the years and comments and stories from friends and peers. At first I was a wee bit surprised because I've always thought of her as a rock singer, it never really occurred to me that she really was a blues and jazz singer first and foremost. I heard one story that was sad, she was voted "ugliest man on the campus" - how cruel people are to each other, I wonder if bullying will ever go away.

I can't think of a clever segue into this weeks project, so I'll just start - this is Hoot the Owl Toque:

I wasn't going to make another owl hat but when I held the yarn in my hand and started to knit with it, it really seemed that an owl would be the best thing for it. I would like to thank Honey Nutbrown for providing the pattern, I am very happy with the results. I used a really bulky yarn, so I used the number of stitches for the smallest size but used the measurements for the bigger sizes.

Oh and by the way, do you like my new "baby"? I felt it would be much better to display my baby hats on a baby head to give viewers a better idea of how the hat would fit, instead of just being put on a rock or christmas ornament, or whatever else I've used in the past.

Valentine's is just around the corner and I'm still pushing to get as many themed items into my little shop. I was playing around with a hook and some yarn last night and came up with this little hat - this would look so sweet on the head of a wee baby: 

And, I might just write up this pattern to share - that depends on how motivated I get. I'm kinda proud of it, because it's all mine and I think it's adorable. 

Alien Friendship Hat

This is my Alien Friendship Hat  - it's so you can always have your little friend with you - but what's unique is how much of him you'd like to share and who you'll share him with.

 Roll the rim all the way up and he's hidden so only you know he's there...

 or roll it down and let him be visible..

 

If someone sees him and you didn't want them to, you can always roll back up the

 rim and deny he was ever there is the first place... 

What? I don't have an alien on my head. What are you talking about? 

Are you feeling okay? 

The top is crocheted, the ribbing is knit and the alien is needle felted. The alien is stitched on by his mouth and bellybutton (yes, my aliens have bellybuttons, don't yours?). I may consider writing up the pattern, if you're interested let me know. 

Flying Needles!

The other day I went I little crazy in the production department and banged out 3 baby hats - and then started on some mittens. At 10pm I could have kept going but had to go to bed so I could get up for work the next day. BUT, then I paid for it during the night - oh boy did I pay! My forearm and hand ached throughout the night and woke me up multiple times. Maybe the return of carpal tunnel or the beginning of tendonitis - I don't know, but I took the warning and took it easy.

Here are the the results of that busy day:

And these are the mittens that I absolutely love, but for now, I've put in my ETSY shop to see if they sell before I keep them for myself.

They are 100% wool and I just love the colours. When I used the same wool on the  baby hat it came out more like camouflage but love how it's all stripy for the mittens. 

And the items have been posted in my shop and it's time for me to move onto another project. Still might take out that sewing machine yet!

I did some Christmas baking, don't want to put too much out otherwise it just gets stale  - so far the current winner is the white chocolate chip cookies. What's your must have Christmas baked item? 

It's getting all cold now, time to start wearing gloves and hats when I walk the dog - but typical fall it warms up here and there - when you're in a spot of sun, when the wind stops, etc - so I end up zipping and unzipping as we go along. Ahh the joys of fall. And it only makes sense that a late spring and a late summer is followed by a late fall -I can't remember a time when the big maple tree in my back yard still had so many leaves this time of year  and there area still at least 2 dozen pears in the tree - way high up so I need a ladder to get them off - I've been lazy and have been waiting for them to fall, but I really should remove them before some hungry bear comes along and tries to climb the little tree. The bears are supposed to go down for winter by mid-November so hopefully they will be gone too. Then I can put out some bird seed and stop locking up the garbage in the garage.

And in the spirit of keeping things warm, I've made two hats - both adult sized. The first a pumpkin hat  - kids don't always have to have the fun hats:

And second, this "Big Hat' (is what I've named it) because it'll cover up your updo or volumes of hair or dreadlocks or your hotrollers or whatever you might have in your hair but you still want to keep your head warm.

It's nice and loose so you can easily get it off without wrecking your hairstyle but still have a warm head.

What are you doing to stay warm or is it even cold where you are? 

My fastest sale yet!

Yippee! Within 24 hours of posting the black spiderweb hat in Etsy, it was purchased! That's very good news, and encouraging too. Happy Halloween!

Just wanted to share.