"I myself have twelve hats and each one represents a different personailty" ~ Margaret Atwood

Saturday, April 28, 2012

My Little Monster Series - Part 1

 Happy Weekend everyone!

I'm pretty excited about this weeks' post, I'm not gonna lie.  But first I have a confession: sometimes I am totally at a loss for what hat to make for Henry.  Sometimes it takes a great deal of time and effort just to come up with something.  This was one of those weeks.  I sat around, trying to come up with something cute and funny to entertain you all, but I just wasn't feeling it.  

I decided early in the week that I wanted to knit a hat this week, there's been a great deal of crocheting going on, I needed a change.  I looked through my epic yarn stash and saw a full ball of aqua coloured yarn that I had used for the crest of the dragon hat.  There aren't a lot of things that colour in nature, so I came up with the idea of a monster hat of some kind.  Something cute and funny to fill the week so we can move on. Instead of searching for a pattern, I figured I would wing it and make one up, so I googled "knit monsters."

That's when I came upon the most amazing etsy shop ever!

Rebecca Danger creates the most awesome knit monster patterns I've ever seen.  You can see her monsters (and purchase her patterns) on her blog, or at her etsy store.  She also provides adorable names and background stories for each of her patterns.  All of the sudden, I was having creative overload and an idea was born:  I'm going to do a small "Monster Series" of hats for those weeks when I'm just not sure what to do.  Although it is tempting to do them all in a row, the first one turned out so well.

Not only did Henry get an awesome hat this week, but he made a new friend too!  I can't wait for the follow up hats and creations to come.

Henry meets his new pal "Iris the Gourmet Monster:"


Look Ma!  We're twins!  (and I can hold my foot!)

Oh Iris, you're so funny!

Check out that coy little smile:

Umm, I appear to be all tangled up in monster

So awesome, right?  I think I am experiencing cute overload at the moment.  Stay tuned for more monster themed hats (and maybe some new friends).

Peace!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Let's go Blue Jays, let's go!

Happy Sunday everyone!  I hope you all have had an excellent weekend so far.  The weather could be a little nicer here, but April showers bring May flowers, right?  Speaking of flowers, it looks like we have some tulips blooming in our back garden, lovely.  I enjoy discovering what is planted in our gardens, since when we moved in, everything was brown.  

As many of you know (and some of you probably do not) baseball season has begun.  Henry supports his dad's teams in all things (of course) so I made him an extra special hat this week.  Hopefully the Jays do better than the Leafs did this year.

Oh, hi mom, is it photoshoot time?

In case you are wondering, I get these patches on ebay.  All you have to do is search whatever patch you are looking for (for example "Toronto Blue Jays Patch" and then search through the zillions of hits you get for one that's the right size for any given project).  I couldn't get the newest Jays logo so Henry is wearing a retro one (the original logo if I'm not mistaken).  Luckily they've returned to their roots with the new logo, so Henry doesn't look too dated ;)

Posing with dad's baseball glove:
 Henry is so excited about baseball season he is wearing his baseball suit (even though it's a little chilly for shorts, luckily we're inside today).

Big smiles for mommy:


I love that little hand waving when he's happy!  We're looking forward to Henry's first baseball game, hopefully some time this summer.  Of course there will be pictures when it happens.  Have a great week everyone!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

For those about to rock, we salute you

Trevor says this week is Henry's testosterone charged hat week.  After much hassling about the lack of manly hats featured, this week I made a simple black toque with a lightning bolt on the front to match Henry's awesome new AC/DC shirt that he got from Debbie (thanks Debbie)!  Please note, it is an authentic AC/DC shirt, not one of those AB/CD shirts, this increases Henry's street cred, fyi.  

Look at those big muscly arms!  (Ok, maybe it's just a bit of baby pudge)

Playing air guitar:

Loving it (can you see that little tooth on the bottom)?

Happy boy!

Notice how well he is sitting up?  Such a big boy all of the sudden!  Hope you all enjoyed this week's manly feature.  I have no idea what we'll do next week, but I'm open to suggestions :)

Cheers!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Hoppy Easter!

As promised, this week's hat is, you guessed it, a bunny hat!  Before I show off this marvel, I would like to share a few pictures of one of my family's oldest Easter traditions: dying Easter eggs.  This year, my mother, my sister and myself coloured no less than 5 dozen hard boiled eggs.  Of course we can't consume all these eggs ourselves, instead we share them with friends, family, neighbours and coworkers.  In the end there are hardly any left at all.

This is how we look half way through:

 We weren't a huge fan of the see through cups, the bottom is too narrow to fish the eggs out, but they look good in pictures.  Here is Chrissy working on a green egg:
 And of course, Henry helping with the colouring:

 So now for the big one, here are some of the beautiful pictures we had done for easter, taken by the wonderful and extremely talented Stephanie Webster, look at that smile!
 I not only made Henry a bunny hat for this shoot, but also a bunny diaper cover, tail and all!  Trevor is a little mortified and keeps mumbling things about paying for therapy some day.  But look at his little bum!


That's all folks!  I wish you all a happy Easter, however you celebrate it!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Just Hatched

Here it is, Easter hat #1.  I have another hat planned for next week, thus the early Easter preview.  Some of you may have seen next weeks' hat on my facebook page, but if you haven't, it's a good one!  

Enough about next week, this week was a busy one for us, I barely found time to fit in a hat.  Between yoga, taking Oma to the dentist, seeing a movie and visiting with some friends not to mention fitting in time to feed Henry solids and get naps in, I'm surprised I found time at all!  Good thing I now find myself able to make a hat in about an hour, so even if it comes right down to it, I can whip one up really fast before a little photo shoot.  

This week my mother put him in a shrub for his photo shoot, he liked it, but was a little distracted:  


Oh no!  Incoming Tilly kisses!  Yucky!

This is as close as we could get to a smile.  At this point, after having tried to make him smile for some time, my mom announced she understands why photographers charge what they do to take baby's pictures.  Not as easy as it looks.
Next week we'll have some pictures of awesome family Easter traditions.  See you then!