Baby Cowgirl

Tiny little hats are so fun to make!
Pink sparkly cowgirl hat made from a NellyBeanCo pattern. Very unique construction and the brim curls up by itself, you just have to “arrange” it a bit. Coming soon to the CrafterellaCupcake store!
Have a super crafty weekend!!!

Tassel Hat

I love the design of this hat, so creative. The shaping of the ear flaps is really nice and the way it hugs the head is great. This was a quick and fun hat to make, I want to make it in a bulkier yarn the next time, make it a bit more hood like. I also want to add an applique, like the sample hat on the pattern.
If you’d like to make a hat like this the pattern can be found here.

Cupcake Baby Hat

My cupcake baby hat is finally available in my Crafterella Cupcake shop!!!I am so excited that it’s finally finished! AND, just for you guys, I’m having a special promotion from now until February 11th., enter the coupon code BLOGFRIENDS and receive a 20% discount in my Crafterella Cupcake store.

Insanity

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.                    -Albert Einstein
I think that a lot of times we get stuck repeating the same actions over and over again because it’s comfortable and easy. When you realize this it can be a bit upsetting and disappointing. I will be doing different things this year!
In that spirit this is what I’m currently working on…baby hats! Samples of my knitting and crocheting skills. I have a plan for these hats and I’ll share that next week. I am also taking a class at the community college, it’s a self improvement class. I’m excited to learn something new (and different).
What new things will you be doing this year?

Inexpensive Mini Witch Hat Fascinator

I have been drooling over all of the stunning mini witch hats I’ve been seeing on etsy. I would LOVE to buy one, but it’s hard for me to justify spending a lot on something that I’m going to wear for an hour or two while the kids trick or treat. Today I’m going to share how I made my own inexpensive version (please note, the hats I am inspired by are a bit more advanced than this version).To make this project super easy you’ll need a base hat, I found mine in Hobby Lobby. Check over by the safety eyes and dolls supplies, it’s a hat meant for a doll, Cost $2.99 (less if you use a coupon).
Supplies:

• Doll sized felt witch hat
• polyester satin, scrap
• vintage buttons
• a variety of other fabrics, scraps
• water color paper and watercolor paint
• a Sakura glaze pen
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• head band or elastic cord
• coordinating ribbon

I made a variety of embellishments for my hat, I wanted a rich, layered look. I made three fabric flowers (like these) from orange polyester satin, using vintage buttons for their centers. I used some metallic platinum colored fabric to make a gathered band, hand stitching it to gather it up.  I made a orange watercolor back ground, once it was dry I drew a design on it using the Sakura glaze pen and when that was dry, I washed over the whole thing with black watercolor for the center of a gather fabric rosette. I also picked a couple extra buttons to use. Then I started hot gluing everything to the felt hat. The platinum band was glued first. I added a ribbon over the gathering stitches and the rosette with the paper center to cover the seams. The three fabric flowers were tucked in next to that and finally I added a ribbon bow and the extra buttons. To finish I stitched the finished had to a head band. I really had fun making this project, I might have to make one or two more, they’re great for decorating too!
Linking with Terrorific Tuesday!

Rainbow Striped Hats and a Lego Cake

Little Sir is turning seven this week and we celebrated yesterday so Grandma and Grandpa could join us.  I decided to make him a Lego cake.  I have never made a “fancy” (as in not just left in the pan and frosted it) cake.  It was quite the learning experience!  I had a hard time getting it out of the pan and, once it was out, frosting it was quite an ordeal (there may have been cussing).  I’m going to need some practice making kids cakes, but Little Sir thought it was great, and that is really all that matters. I was happy that it was at least identifiable and it was very tasty!
Also, unrelated, I crocheted Little Miss a hat.
A rainbow striped, brimmed tam, I found the pattern at Vallieskids, she always has the cutest kids hats!  It looks really cute on her, but she likes to pull it down to her nose, I imagine it’s because that really annoys me.
How was your weekend?

Designing Knitted Hats

I never really thought I would be able to design hats, I still feel like such a beginning knitter. I think that’s because I don’t knit sweaters or blankets or other super huge projects. I do knit a lot of hats though and I realized that I was always changing them up a bit to make them the way I wanted to make them, hmmm I guess that is sort of designing.

This all started because I love cupcakes and I wanted to knit little baby cupcake hats. There are plenty of cupcake hat patterns out there, but nothing like I wanted, the frosting just wasn’t quite right. I made a couple with cherries on top and they turned out cute, but the cherry was too nipple like for my satisfaction and it was just one more thing to sew on. I thought about a pompom, but nah and how many cupcakes have I really eaten with a cherry on top anyway! So I’ve been working on this:

It looks nice modeled on this jar and I’m getting close, but when I put it on a head: The frosting needs to be taller/rounder and this yarn wasn’t the best choice, the colors are great though. I also need to make that top tail a bit longer and tack it down in a curl shape. I might even want to add another layer to the icing frill.

I also saw a boy wearing a fleece raccoon hat and thought it would be a lot cuter knitted. It’s close too, just a little more tweaking and some eyes: I’m trying to decide if the ear-flaps are really what I want or if a striped and ribbed band around the bottom of a regular hat would be better and exactly what sort of eyes I’m going to make.

I like to share some of the process of what goes into a design, I would love to hear what you guys think of these two hats. I’m also trying to decide what to do with my pile of imperfect samples: throw them out, unravel them, give them away, sell them as one offs…what are your thoughts?

He is REALLY Annoyed

Here’s the action shot from yesterdays finished hat. 

Yeah, he is really annoyed.

  You should have seen the arm flapping and heard the whining, but after a few minutes he forgets it’s on and he’s fine.  It is sooooo cute and he’ll be toasty warm even if he is annoyed.

How to Annoy a Baby

Babies in hats are soooooo cute, but once your baby gets coordinated enough to grab things it is really difficult to keep a hat on that baby. I live in Nebraska and it gets cold here, the baby must wear a hat (and hopefully look cute too).

I’ve had the b 14-28 hat pattern in my favorites on ravelry for a while and decided that this weekend was the perfect time to get it done. I made the 6-9 month size using Red Heart in Fall (I absolutely love the colors in this, I have now made two hats with one skein) and Coffee. The pattern was a little confusing for the shaping of the hood part, but after re-reading it a few times I got it. It seemed like the first 8-12 rows took forever, but after the decreases it went a lot quicker. I ended up redoing the ribbing around the face hole, I had followed the pattern and done 2 X 2 ribbing and folded and stitched, but I didn’t like it. Instead I purled a row, knitted a row, purled a row and did a crochet bind off. I also divided the stitches at the top of the hat in half and did a crochet bind off there too.

I worked on this hat all day Sunday and, sadly, I finished way to late to get an action shot of the baby, but hopefully I’ll have one to post soon. I did try it on him before finishing the face hole and adding the pompoms and it was super cute. You should have seen the look on his face when he tried to pull it off and it didn’t budge, sooo funny. How do you like to annoy babies you know?

Baby Cocoon and Hat Gift Set

I just finished up this adorable little cocoon and hat set for a family member.  I used several different Yarn Bee yarns and I really like how the stripes turned out.  I used the butterfly baby wrap pattern (ravelry link) again and it looks totally different than the one I made for Little Man.  The dark licorice colored yarn was held double and the turquoise yarn was one strand.  I think the little hat turned out cute, but manly and that was exactly what I was going for.  Knitting for babies is so quick and so cute!

Hootie Who Hat

Owls are so in right now and it seems like everywhere I go I see them.  I’ve been seeing some really cute hats and I thought I need to make my own version. I knitted a plain hat with picot edging on the bottom and then added hand embroidered felt eyes and a beak.  Little Miss loves it and my husband wants a masculine version.

Unruly Hair Wrap

I have very long, thick, coarse hair and needless to say it spends most of the summer in a bun, braid or ponytail.  Now that I have bangs they hang down and make my forehead hot too.  I usually wear a bandana, but I was starting to feel a little rednecky and not cute.  Speaking of not cute, I would like to mention that taking a flattering picture of yourself from the side is really difficult, focus on the head wrap, not my face.  I found this really cute pattern for a larger head wrap on Susan In Stitches and crocheted one up yesterday afternoon.  I left off one repeat (I was using a partial ball and ran out).  It came out perfect and really holds all the stray hair and bangs down well.  Now I need to make a variety of colors, the orange is a little bright.  I’m thinking the the Sugar and Cream cotton yarn I used may have been a bit bulky for the pattern, so I might try a finer yarn next time too.

It’s back to the craft room for me, I will be sharing a booth with some of my Lincoln Handmade Team members tomorrow at the Festival of Rock and, of course, I’ll be sewing until the last minute.  Have a super crafty weekend!

New Baby Set Design

I am still in the mood to make baby things, I think it’s a combination of instant gratification and the cuteness factor. This is the Diva set, with ribbon tied peep toe shoes and a ribbon embellished hat.

I would love to have some opinions about the hats: I have edged the yellow one with eggplant and the other one is plain, which one do you like better and which hat looks better with these shoes. I was also wondering if you think that sets like this are a good thing to sell.

I’m not 100% on the ribbon (it’s a color thing), I made the set and then tried to find ribbon. I now have some super cute ribbon and I got yarn to coordinate and I’m much happier with how it’s going to look. I have ideas for three more sets, the one I’m working on now is called Skater, I hope to have it worked out soon so I can share pictures.

Cupcake Baby

I have been working on a new baby hat design using knitting and crochet.  In fact, this design has been sitting in my knitting bag waiting for the cherry to be sewn on the top for a couple of months.  Now for the perfect test, how will it work on a brand new baby.This little set has a cupcake hat, cupcake swaddling blanket, and it’s in a cupcake reusable gift bag, I really like cupcakes!  There is also a cupcake purse (like this) for the new big sister.

P.S. Congratulations Lisa and Josh!

Stranding or Look, I Made a Zigzag

I still think of myself as a beginning knitter even though I have been knitting a few years now.  I guess it’s because I knit little things like hats, booties, purses and scarves.  I have been anxious to try stranding (some also call it fair isle), but a bit intimidated too.  Using two colors in one row could get confusing!  I watched the stranding video on knittinghelp.com (scroll down about half the page for the video) and just went for it.It was easy and now I have this cute little zigzag hat to go with my rock and roll baby gowns.  I think I’m going to try an argyle band next or maybe skulls or storm trooper heads, this takes my hats to a whole new level, LOL!

And Now A Little Girly Set: In Progress

Yes, I bought another new knitting pattern, I am justifying it by saying that it is multi-sized and I can make one for every girl I know, if I want to.  Really, I have been admiring it for a while and I just really needed a super cute little girl hat to knit for baby gifts.  The Bow-licious Babe hat from Connie Haney was just too cute to resist.

The bow just makes this pattern, which is simple, but adorable.  The pattern is easy to understand and uses basic knitting skills and easily found yarn, all pluses.  It is also sized for newborns to adults making it super easy to make one for every female you know.  The only thing that I did differently was picking up the bound on edge and knitting it together with the hat (like in the little skater hat pattern) so I would not have to sew it up later.  The really awesome thing about this hat is that the bow is removable, just think of all the possibilities:  a bow in every color, ribbon bows, hair clips or giant flowers all can be easily attached where the bow goes!

Also pictured is bootie number one from the Saartje’s Bootees pattern (pattern link on right side bar).  This bootie pattern it a bit more advanced, but do-able by most knitters.  It work up quickly using all garter stitch and I think it is a great compliment to the Bow-licious hat.

Here are my two sets.  I really think that skater hat is just to big for the booties.  I think I will make a masculine version of the bow-licious hat, I think it’s size is perfect for a newborn.  The skater hat will be grown into later.

I am really enjoying knitting little baby things, I’m even thinking about making a little sweater.  I guess it’s time to go a make bootie number two, have a great weekend.

Skater Baby Hat and Booties

Last week I was in the mood to make little baby things, the advantage is that they work up really fast.  I used the Skater Baby Hat pattern from Emily at CoffeeBra.  Make sure you look around her blog a bit there are also special instructions how to make and insert the bill.  I think this hat turned out sooooo cute, although it seems like it might be a bit big for a newborn, but oh well he’ll grow into it.

I also made a pair of Little Button Loafers to match, they are so tiny, I may need to make the next size up to make sure I have a pair that will fit. 

Now I’m on the hunt for a cute coordinating fabric to make a tie appliqué for a little shirt.  I will be making a few more hat styles out of the left over yarn (it’s I love this cotton from Hobby Lobby in old leaf, burnt sienna, and white), I don’t think you can ever have enough little baby hats.

Striped Knits

I have been knitting away making some arm warmers and an earflap hat out of this great colored yarn from Red Heart, the color is 0964 Primary and it has all of my favorite colors and stripes really well.

I used a combination of patterns blended together for the hat.  The arm warmers are a modified version of Slither from Knitty, I knitted them in the round and left off the stripes and buttons.  I am really excited to wear these this weekend, it’s finally getting cold enough for winter knits.

The “Megan Wants You…” Crocheted Hat

The “Megan wants you…” hat from Valerie Whitten of vallieskids.blogspot.com, is a super cute hat that includes a brim and a decorative band attached with buttons. I whipped this up in an afternoon using a J hook and some clearance yarn.

It turned out really cute, but the yarn reminds me of barfed up skittles.

I took this hat with me to the Frost Frolic Craft show and its the first hat I sold, I’m not sure if it was the style or the color that attracted the buyer, but I will have to make some more of these. Valerie has a lot of cute and easy crochet patterns available on her blog, you should definitely check it out (she is also the designer of the butterfly hat that I have featured here).

I would also like to apologize for being missing all last week, my entire family had some sort of stomach virus/flu and we were pretty ill for the entire week, but don’t worry, we’re all better now and I’m feeling super crafty. The weather is starting to get colder and all I want to do it knit warm things and sew up warm things, so stay tuned, hopefully I will be tackling some of the things on my ever growing to-craft list.

Paper Mache Wrap Up

I coated my paper mache with some light weight joint compound, which probably wasn’t the best idea.  The moisture leached into the paper mache and weakened it, but I’m still using them.

They kind of look like I frosted them.  It took and entire day for them to dry and this morning I sanded them smooth.  I used black gesso to paint/prime them.  I will need to go back and do some touching up and finish the bottoms, but I wanted to share this today.

I really like how these turned out, I wish I had more time to work on them, but I need them to be ready for tomorrow to display my hats.

I had wanted to paint faces on them, but now I’m glad I just went with plain black, my table cloth is also black and I think that it will really make my hats pop!

It’s time for me to start loading up the car, have a great weekend everyone!