Cold enough for hats :)...and other things I have been doing lately

I have had a lot of fun in the last couple of months making custom hats, which is fairly new for me. I have made sock monkeys, owls, pandas, horses, kitty cats, hats with earflaps, hats with braids, and hats with flowers. It is a good thing I have hats made for my kids because we actually got snow flurries yesterday here. We don't usually get snow that early in the season. The kids were really excited.

Someone showed me some pics of some really cute beanie hats with beards on them on etsy and asked if I could do that. I said I would try. I found lots of beanie patterns free on the crochet pattern central website. I kind of just made things up as I went for the beard. I used Talon as a model, as well as the girls' fashion doll head. I started with the mustache row and made it as long as I wanted (ear to ear on Talon). On the next row down, I just chained about 10 or so when I got to the middle to make a hole for the mouth. Then I made a couple more rows after that. Maybe 2 or 3. I think it was 3. On the the 2nd one after the mouth opening, I did 2 stitches per stitch for the chin, and then on the last row I just did one stitch per stitch all the way across....someday I might write that out if it doesn't make any sense. To get the texture of the beard I did crossed half double crochet stitches. That means I skipped a stitch and did a hdc, and then I went back and worked a hdc in the skipped stitch. I have no idea if any of the people who sell these on etsy do their beards like this or differently. I really just kind of winged it. As you can see, Talon was really happy with his hat :).




Talon requested his own bearded hat after watching me make a couple for a special order. He said his had to be green and yellow (his favorite colors) with a brown mustache. :)