Put Some Character On Your Head

Whew. I have been off of here for quite a while. We have been busy, busy, busy. I really miss blogging and I'm not promising I'm going to start up again, but I will think about it. =)

I wanted to share all the hats I've been making over the last year. I've sold most of these to help with my Christmas gift shopping this year. I really love making these hats. They are so much fun!

I've had a lot of first time requests for hats I've never made. I"m happy to say they have all turned out better than I expected.

I really love seeing photos of the kids and/or adults who have received my hats. It gives them so much more character. I wanted to start selling them on Etsy or Ebay or something like that, but I was so blessed to be busy with orders from friends, or friends of friends that I haven't had time to make any to sell online.

The hats can be made from newborn size all the way up to large adult men size.

Let me know what you think.

This is my very first character hat from one year ago. They've gotten much better since.

Hello Kitty

These next photo is of my third through fifth character hats ever.

Perry the Platypus and Sock Monkey

This one is from a baby shower in April of this year.

Dinosaur baby hat

Pink and Brown Sock Monkey

Purple and Orange Sock Monkey

The rest of the photos are all hats made from August of this year through this past week.

Cookie Monster baby hat

Minnie Mouse in pink

Oakland Raiders colors - sock monkey 

Rapunzel

Horse/Pony

One-eye Minion

Sesame Street - Elmo, Ernie, Grover, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird

 Buzz Lightyear

This is my first attempt at a Minecraft Creeper. 

I've since found some really neat green yarn that makes it look more pixleated like Minecraft really is.

The minion hats have been the most popular of the ones I've made. I think I've done about 10 of them.

Kiley has requested an R2D2 hat, she's a big Star Wars nerd.

Thanks for reading as always. I'm sure I've lost most of my regular readers since I've gone so long without blogging.

Blessings to you and yours and have a Happy New Year.

-Kimmie

Crocheting and sewing for Christmas

Have I blogged about how much I love to crochet? If I haven't I really should. I really love it. It's relaxing, it's easy, it's fun. I love shopping for yarn; I love the way it feels. Okay, you get it. For Christmas gifts this year I crocheted A LOT. I made hats and bath-scrubbies for all of my children, plus my niece and nephews. I found a bunch of free patterns on Pinterest and through google searches.

This was my first ever character hat. Hello Kitty for my favorite niece (she's my only niece). Pattern found here: Hello Kitty Free Crochet Hat Pattern

August has been asking for a sock monkey hat for a long time. She loves sock monkey's and has about 15 of them. Along with her hat, I made Emily and Julia, Perry the Platypus hats.

The sock monkey hat pattern can be found here: at Crochet in Color. I used her pattern with a very large hook to modify it to fit August's head. I can't find where the Perry the Platypus pattern was from. But a simple google search can yield many free patterns. 

I saw these awesome book slings in the Family Fun magazine a while back. I saw them again on Pinterest and decided to make them for Emily and Julia. They always have a ton of books in their beds, these were perfect to hang on the wall next to them. They were also very simple to make. Link here at Penny Carnival .

Kiley and Haley both got slouchy hats, which I regret to say I can't find the link for the pattern.

One of my favorite projects were these monster bath-scrubbies. If found the free pattern at Ravelry.

 I found a skein of really cool Red Heart camouflage yarn, and made each of my 3 wonderful nephews a hat. Apparently I only took one photo of the camo hats. Ha! I guess I need to be better at photographing my work. This was for my youngest nephew who is almost 2. I used the pattern from the sock monkey hat and omitted the ear flaps. I used a smaller hook so that it would be baby size.

The other two hats, not shown were just basic skull beanies for boys/teens with no pom-pom. They are camo with orange stripes in the middle.

These are flower coasters. I made several sets of these in different colors. I even sold a set! Yay me. That was my first homemade sale. This pattern I found on Pinterest and it's linked here at Mollie Makes. I used Patons yarn. I would love to find it in similar colors as the pattern pictures, but so far I can only find blue, white, purple, black and gray.

Making gifts really saved a lot of money. It does take a lot of time. I started 3 1/2 months before Christmas to get it all done. I get really bad carpal tunnel, not the best thing for someone who enjoys crocheting as much as I do. I have to do it in small doses.

 Happy New Year.

~Kimmie

Turtle Power!

I have been crocheting for about two years. My grandmother taught me when I was younger and then I forgot how. I re-taught myself with a book and good ole' You Tube. I've been mostly making dishcloths (which I love), scarves and an afghan here and there (I have two half done). Most recently I've discovered the Amigurumi animals. There are so many I want to make. I have done a few now, and they are just way too cute.

I just made these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I found the pattern on Pinterest linked to here. I altered the original pattern a bit to fit the way I wanted it to look. I used her arm instructions for my turtles legs and then following the style of those legs I made smaller ones for the arms.

Aren't they fun??

Heroes in a Half-Shell

I have a bunch of other fun crochet projects I'm working on for gifts for this year. I'll be sharing as I finish. 

MIA

Wow! I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged. I tend to use facebook more since it's faster and easier to upload pictures and say what I want to say. However, facebook seems to be doing some creepy things lately, leading me to want to use my blog for that stuff instead.

Right now I'm in crazy cram mode. I have 5 stockings I'm frantically trying to sew for the girls' as their Christmas Eve gifts, (usually it's jammies). I'm also making some ornaments, and crocheting 2 blankets and some dishcloths. Each day seems to be flowing by like it's on fast forward. I am also hosting Christmas Eve dinner at our new home this year and I've not even begun to think about preparing for that. I've decided to not send out our annual family picture and Christmas card this year, because I have no picture and no cards, and I can't see where I'm going to fit it in.

Kiley, August and Haley are all playing extended season soccer this year and it's keeping us busier than usual for this time of year.

I have many other things and pictures to share, and I'll try to get that up as soon as possible.

Merry Christmas.

Re-learning to Crochet

My Grandma Mary taught me to crochet when was a little girl. I remember I really liked it. I really don't remember how to do it anymore. Money is going to be really super tight for Christmas this year. I have decided to re-learn how to crochet. I'm heading out this week to get a few different yarns and the necessary needles. With the help of you-tube and some online articles, I'm hoping to crochet each of my girls a little animal toy and a hat and scarf for Christmas. I'd better get cracking.

I sure wish I had Grandma Mary here re-teach me instead of youtube. Things like this make me miss her so much more.