Hats, hats, and more hats!

Whoa, I fell off of the crochet blogging bandwagon...  I did not, however, fall off the crocheting bandwagon.  Since I last blogged, I have completed 43 crochet projects.  FORTY-THREE. Granted, 31 of those were 12" afghan squares, but still.  My hook has been a-flying, but my fingers haven't been a-typing.  What have I been up to?  Hats, afghan blocks, and amigurumi, mostly.  And an afghan that I can't blog about yet because I was one of the testers and it's super-secret until the pattern is released.

Let's start with the hats!

First up is a Minnie Mouse hat that I made for a sweet little girl turning two years old.  The pattern came from one of my favorite crochet blogs, Repeat Crafter Me.  I love how it uses buttons as polka dots!

Next, my friend, Pauline, asked me to make a beautiful hat (for her 5-year-old daughter) that was making the rounds on Facebook, but it turned out that the pattern was in Russian.  So, I used this pattern for the actual hat, and by using Google Translate, I was able to figure out the flowers from the Russian pattern.

Sonia loved the hat so much that I made her one, too!  And, then Pauline's co-worker asked if I might be able to make an adult-sized one, too!  It turned out just as beautiful, I think.

When one of my new Texas friends heard that I crochet, she asked if I might be able to make her a slouchy hat.  It turned out awesome and looked great on her, but you'll have to take my word for it because she didn't want her picture posted on the internet.  I should have had Sonia take a picture of me wearing it!  When the hat is just lying on a table, the brim rolls up and doesn't look all that great.  But I would definitely make this Neely Slouchy Hat again! It is a fantastic pattern.

I also made two more Elsa hats and one more Anna hat....  

I also crocheted two Spider-Man graph beanies (like the one I made for Cameron earlier this year)

This one is a bit bigger than the other one....  I hope both of them fit!

With no intended recipient in mind, I grabbed some pretty yarn (Red Heart Super Saver, "Tea Leaf" color) and gave the Crochet Seafarer's Cap a try....  I love this pattern so much!!  The hat turned out a tiny bit snug on my head, so I'm going to have to go up a hook size if I make it for an adult.  But how cool is the brim of this hat?  It almost looks knitted!  And it is very stretchy.  I highly recommend giving this pattern a try.

 I already have a red seafarer's cap about halfway done, and I know I'm making a few more hats before Christmas.  Crocheting hats is so satisfying because they usually only take a few hours and can be done while chatting (unlike a lot of the afghan blocks I've hooked over the last few months!).

More blog posts to come!

Belated Halloween costume report

This summer, my children became obsessed with "The Wizard of Oz" after my cousin, Cady Lane, sent them a CD of the soundtrack.  I then bought them a DVD of the movie and we proceeded to watch it 19 times.  It was only natural that Charlotte then wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween.

I remembered that Aunt Janet had sewn a Dorothy costume for her granddaughter a few years back, so I asked her if she still had that pattern.  Sweet AJ then bought me my own copy of the pattern (yes, she IS the coolest aunt ever) and I got to work a few weeks before Halloween.

This was the first time I had sewn a garment from a store-bought pattern since the crop tops Mom helped Erin and me sew when we were about 12 years old. This dress was a leeeeeeeeetle more complicated than that, and I was kind of surprised at how vague some of the directions were (probably because I'm not experienced at formal garment sewing).  I got it done though, without any major incidents.  Here is the finished result:

Thank you to my mother-in-law for hunting down the ruby red slippers from Meijer!  Since it's a tad colder in Michigan in October than it is in the Land of Oz, we put a long-sleeved shirt and leggings under the dress.  We also chose to skip the socks under the shoes.

The pattern was very to the movie version of the dress, right down to the ric rac around the neck and sleeves as well as the bias-cut strip around the skirt.  It's awesome, but it is very unfinished on the inside (perhaps because it is just a costume?).  I wasn't thrilled with the color of gingham that I had to use, but I had such a hard time finding any gingham at all (why on earth would Jo-Ann's not carry gingham?!?!?) that I counted my blessings that I was able to procure even this shade of blue.  Charlotte's sleeves were a bit shorter and her skirt was a little longer, but otherwise she was the spitting image of sweet Judy Garland (in terms of the dress, at least).

Peter kept saying he wanted to be Toto for Halloween, but then decided he would rather be Bumblebee (the Transformer -- not the animal).  Here are Dorothy and Bumblebee trying to eat doughnuts on a string at their grandparents' house a few nights before Halloween.

For the school Halloween party, We finally got Charlotte's hair in pigtails and scrounged up a stuffed dog to be Toto.  Here is sweet Dorothy outside her classroom that day.

We saw a couple of other Dorothys at school that day, but their costumes only vaguely resembled the one from the movie.  One of them looked like the sexy stripper fairy version of Dorothy, which was kind of creepy on a first grader.  Isn't this version horrifying?  Gack.

UNFORTUNATELY, it was snowing and sleeting the night of Halloween, so this is what the poor kids looked like all bundled up when they actually went trick or treating:

Too bad they don't make ruby red sparkly rain boots.