silvermari & the stick: crochet

Showing posts with label crochet. Show all posts

Crochet: Blue Swirl Hat

I made a quick swirled hat, basically designed by the almost-seven-year-old intended recipient, a friend at church. She flipped through my book with designs I'd crocheted and picked out this Divine Hat pattern. I used the exact hook sizes as the pattern recommends and worsted weight yarn.

But she wanted to make specific edits - with the colors and adding the dark blue lines on a light blue background. I put off doing it for many weeks but started it while she was at our house on a play date, to ask for some specifics (what color do you want the band at the bottom - light blue, is it OK that one of the stripes -- my beginning/ending of each round -- is thicker than the others? yes, do you want a pom-pom added to cover the light blue circle at the top? no). It took me a few hours to finish over the course of a few days, very quick and it turned out great. A little big on her but not too big, probably sized for a small adult or tween because of the length. I like when hats can be worn for longer than just today (I've made one or two for my girls that are outgrown within a month ... what a waste).

Anyway, I like the way this turned out and think it would be really cute with white background and red stripes, as a peppermint, and with a striped band at the bottom, although that would be even more of a struggle!

Two Little Pumpkins

My latest commission is two pumpkin hats for an aunt to gift to her nephews who live somewhere much colder than south Louisiana. They are pretty cute and I hope they fit -- still working on arranging delivery and payment. The vertical crochet makes for a nice stretchy hat, and the brim lets you roll it up or down to further customize the fit.

This pattern is really just a method -- chain until it's about the height you want the hat to be (because adding the top will allow for the brim fold) and double crochet in the back loop only back and forth until it's as long as the hat needs to be around. Sew up the two sides to make a tube. Then attach the green to one end of the tube and single crochet evenly around. Decrease every 10 stitches, then every 9 stitches, etc. until maybe 8 or 9 stitches left and single crochet around to make the stem. Decrease until you sew up the top. The curlique vine is easy - chain the length (knowing that it will curl up) and put three double crochet into each chain. Sew it onto the stem. If desired or needed you can reinforce the green-to-orange attachment with simple sewing. Weave in ends.Voila.

I use 100% acrylic yarn so my hats are washable. I dry them flat because the dryer makes the yarn a little fuzzy and can break it down faster.

I've made this hat in stripes - changing colors every-other-row and leaving off the stem but adding multiple curliques. You could maybe decrease faster to make a smaller top section. If you made a longer tube you could cinch it by weaving in and out -- maybe even with a long chain. I bet a rainbow, multi-colored hat would be cute like this. I probably have every color of the rainbow after my fury of crocheting before the maker faire so I'll put it on the "to make" list. I have two-toned blue swirl hat to make for a young friend. I need to measure her head and I keep forgetting. It's probably standard kid sized and it would be fine if I make it to fit Jane's head.

Keep that hook flying!

Cutie Crochet

A friend from church commissioned two hats for her one-year-old great niece. I added bows, although they are removable on hairclips. Thinking now I should have just sewn them on since it's basically a baby going to wear them, but a baby who can unclip things for sure! Oh well. She seemed happy with them, and hopefully I'll get to see a photo of them in action later on. She originally asked for "whatever Christmas-y hat you have left over that would fit a one-year-old," but didn't like what was left (I even had an adorable gingerbread girl!). I was happy to make these, even though they're not really Christmas-y (I added the red sparkle bow to the penguin to try to make it so!).

My friend said she could be my agent and get lots of people to buy tiger hats, but they're very fussy to make -- the stripes aren't terribly hard, but figuring out the sizing with two different stitch heights (black is single, orange is double), plus the ear flaps and braids, 10 circles (two striped for ears, two black for inside ears, two whites of eyes, two pupils, two white cheeks) and a triangle (nose), sewing everything in place and adding whiskers. It's a lot of work. On the other hand the penguins are much simpler and with varied eye placement they can have different expressions.

I need to buy some alligator clips for the bows -- I just used regular barrette type clips that I use in the girls' hair, particularly Jane's to clip down her self-cut micro-bangs when she'll let me (which isn't often). Before they'd been clipping down the other hair she'd chopped short, which finally grew out just before she did the micro-bangs. Ugh. A digression.

I heard back from the preschool director and we had a conversation that made me feel less bad I guess. Certainly not ignored. The kids do have "Indian" names -- Livia's is Smiling Kitten -- which is egregious and upsetting. The director said she'd understand if we didn't want to be part of the gathering. So I'm just sitting with it, praying about it and stewing. What good will it do, what good will anything I do do?

Hats: The Characters

See the post Want to Order a Crochet Hat. These are the "character" hats. Faces and embroidery take more time, so the cost is a bit more. Contact me for details, but generally $15-$20 per hat.

Baby Shark - 3D fin, teeth and gums -- can add ties to ear flaps

Three sock monkeys - can be customized with bow or flower - can add ties to ear flaps

Dinosaur or dragon hat, Baby reindeer, Penguin option

Crazy turkeys -- can add ties to ear flaps

Baby froggy

Twitter bird

Fox

Froggy beanie

Gingerbread girl - bow can be customized

Grumpy cat

Ladybug

Panda bear

Penguin option -- can add bow

Baby owl beanie

Ear flap Owl Hat - colors can be customized

Siamese cat

Snowman

Sock monkey

Tiger - can add bow in team colors

Lambie from Doc McStuffins - this is a copyrighted character, but it was something I made for my daughter. For display only/not for sale

Hats: Cute Designs

See the post Want to Order a Crochet Hat. These are the non-character hats. (Faces and embroidery take more time, so the cost for those is a bit more.) Contact me for details, but generally $10-$15 per non-character hat.