Recent Custom Creations

I've done a few custom order in the last few month that I wanted to add here to the collection on my blog.

First here is a custom hat based on The Penny.  The patron wanted it to be gray and light pink (the same colors used in The Madison) as well as taking off the leaves.

Then, my friend Marcy asked me to make this hat, two of them in fact.  She sent me a screen shot of her pin.  So I just wrote my own pattern.  Here is Josh, my reluctant model.  

I will be adding this to the shop after I get good shots of it.   

Then I had an order for a blue version of my Rutgers Little Fan hat, which looks to me like a Giants hat, or maybe Captain America (since I live in Eagles country and so does the recipient).

  

 After that I had an order for two Gingerbread Man hats, with the addition of a pair of baby legs.  This is the first set of baby leg warmers I've made.  I read a tutorial pattern and I adapted it to what I needed,  of course now I can't find the tutorial I used, so my apologies for not being able to link that.

Finally, my husband co-worker had a special request.  His son was outgrowing his favorite hat.  He asked if I could make a replica and sent me this picture.        


How did I do?

The funny thing is I wasn't sure what animal this was while I was working on it,  I though raccoon, but then I thought the colors were wrong so maybe it was a fox, heck maybe it was some weird animal I don't even know.  My husband confirmed upon deliver that it was indeed a raccoon,  I think I will make a gray, black, and white one for the next shop photoshoot.

The Reindeer Snood

Here is the reason I have been MIA for the month of December. This item has quickly become my #1 seller.  13 were ordered in 14 days!  This is the story behind it.  

It all started when my coworker sent me this on Facebook.  I have no idea where she found this. I tried googling the image when I was looking and keep coming up blank.  So I had to write the pattern from scratch.  Which is fine because most of what's in the picture is knit, which while I can do it, I prefer not to.  So I wrote an all crochet version.  

She looks happy, right?

First I made the base snood- which is a new word I learned for a dog hood and neck cover.  It was a little too big for her Italian greyhounds, but she took pictures which really helped me figure out the changes I needed to make to get a good fit.  When I brought the prototype back home we tried it on my dog who thought it was a torture device, so if course I couldn't resist trying it on my cat, Bella.  

After the appropriate modifications were made to the pattern, I used the same antler pattern I used for my Rudolph hat.  The ears are the same pattern as well but I double layered them so I could have two colors.  These require a good deal of sewing as well.  Here is what the finished products look like.

I'm very grateful to my colleague for her inspiration for these and the photos she shared with me!

Within two days of listing the item, I had four orders.  Here they are! The second one was a custom order for a heather snood with shorter aran antlers.  

Abby Cadabby and Cookie Monster Custom Hats

I was recently asked if I could make hats for a friend's children when they go to Sesame Place in the winter.  Because I generally believe I can do anything when it comes to crocheting, I said yes.  This is one where I really had no idea what I was in for!  Before I go on, here is a picture of the finished projects.  Abby is for a 2 year old girl and Cookie Monster is for a 6 month old boy.  

 I did a little research on the internet before I began and sent a few links to my patron.  We discussed features she liked of each and I made my own pattern.  After shopping for the perfect colors to use, I started working on the bases and went from there.  

Abby was a lot more work than I anticipated.  She requires several pieces and LOTs of color!
She includes a nose, blue eyes with blue "eye-shadow" and hand stitched eyelashes, ears, daisy hair ties, and of course the hair!  The colors I found for her hair are awesome, really the picture doesn't do it justice.  They are Shimmer yarn by Red Heart and they have colored sparkles that run throughout, perfect for a fairy!  I had to learn how to wig a crochet hat.  This free tutorial download was quite helpful, though not perfectly specified or aligned to how I made this hat, but with some common sense and experimentation, I was able to adapt it.  Then Abby got her hair done!  This was the first time I cut hair on a hat!!  

Cookie Monster was a lot easier, though he had his fair share of parts: googly eyes, mouth, and who could leave off some chocolate chip cookies with bites taken out of them!

These hats are not yet available for purchase in my shop, but I would gladly take a custom order.   I will be listing them after my next photoshoot.  

New Girly Items

At the end of November we did a photo shoot for two girlier versions of hats that were already in the shop. Here are the Gingerbread Girl and my Skull and Crossbones hat with a raspberry (instead of the red in the original) stripe.

 My friend lent me her two year old for the photoshoot.  Originally we were going to have Sydney and Joshua model the boy and girl versions together, but Joshua decided to nap.  So we let sleeping toddlers lie and just worked with Syd.  She did very well considering how cold it was!  I may or may not have paid her in cookies :)

Of course Joshua, the typical boy, woke up in time for dinner at Pizza Hut, so we tried to get one decent shot of the two of them since Josh ALWAYS has his "Jake" hat (as he calls it) on.  

Well I did say we TRIED!

There's a lot to catch up on

Hello out there!
I'm still here.  Life and my Etsy business have been so very busy the last couple months I've hardly had time to put down my crochet hooks.  I have a lot to catch you up on but we'll start with Happy Holidays (well at least I got this on here before New Year's)!

The weather really cooperated with us to get this picture.  We got the idea from pinterest.  We searched for a short real tree before we finally realized the top of my grandmom (Erma's) Christmas tree that she had since the 70s would work.  Do you like his hat?  You know who made it ;)