Monster Series 3

Happy Friday the 13th!  Just in case you are having a bad day, I'm updating today to improve things for you!  Actually, part of the reason for the early update is that I will have questionable internet service for about a week, so I thought I'd update now and not worry about it.  

This week's hat is quite unseasonal.  I know it's Summer and about 100 degrees out, but I made an earflap hat.  I thought of it and it was just too cute to pass up.  Also, I needed a picture of Henry in a monster themed hat for another project and I wanted a more recent shot than the previous monster hats.

Crazy to think when I last took a pic of Henry with a monster he could barely sit up.  Now he's crawling everywhere and pulling himself up on just about everything he can reach!  So many changes!  But now that physical growth is slowing down, making winter-y hats in the summer isn't so questionable because it's possible they'll still fit in the fall.

Alright, that's probably enough back story for today.  Hat time!

Henry was not in the mood for a photo-shoot today, which is kind of unusual for him.  He's such a ham, he usually sees a camera and immediately does this:

However, after this gem (which was the second shot I took) I got winners like this:

It's cute and funny, but not exactly what I was hoping for.  Or this:

In case you are wondering, his face is still turned toward the camera here, he has pulled the earflap over his face. *facepalm*  I did manage to get this picture (it's a bit blurry though):

Normally Henry is all dad.  But in the above pic, I see some mom, I'll show you a picture of me making a similar face:

Can you see it?  We're even sitting in the same position.

I hope you all have a lovely day and weekend, Friday the 13th and Satanic weather aside...

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!

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!

Signs of Spring

Spring is officially upon us!  Although word has it that the temperature will be dropping again in the next few days, you can't deny it, Winter is over at last.  We spent most of this week outside enjoying the sunshine.  We even went to the zoo!  

 We found this hat in a collection of hand me downs we received from one of my mom's co-workers.  It rocks.  I like that it is stretchy so it stays on Henry's head.   Here we are checking out the penguins swimming by the window (see the tail)?

 But of course, this entry would not be complete without a hat that mommy made.  This hat in honour of spring:

 We even found some little flowers to pose next to!  This is in my Mother's front garden.  My garden also appears to have some daffodils that bloomed this week!  So exciting.

 I couldn't find a suit to match the hat, but it's probably less embarrassing this way.

In other exciting news, Henry got his first tooth this weekend!  I was totally not expecting it, but he smiled at my during bath time on Thursday and there it was!  That first tooth sprouting up on his gums.  Since then it's cut all the way through and is now a razor-sharp addition to his little mouth.  All things considered, he coped like a little champ.  My sweet little boy!

Keep an eye out for some awesome Easter themed hats coming up in the next few weeks!  I've also been instructed to throw in some manly hats, so stay tuned for those as well.

Gillian

Extra! Extra!

Well folks, it looks like the weather is slowly turning into spring like conditions!  Although we've had a few icy cold days we've had enough warm days that we are facing the inevitable hat dilemma where it's too warm for hats, but I still have hats a plenty to create.  

In light of the warmer forecast for the next few days, I made Henry a hat that doesn't quite cover his ears, so he can wear it without having a meltdown because it's too hot.  Hopefully.  

In other exciting news, our good friends welcomed their sweet daughter S to the world this week!   Join me in congratulating J and R on their beautiful little girl!  Henry is looking forward to a lifetime of friendship :)  S's dad, J, and I have known each other since we were only 4 years old, it's kind of incredible that our children might have an even longer friendship than we have maintained. The world is a crazy place!

Here's the little man in the test shot.  Nice chin rolls buddy!

He's only doing this until his acting career takes off...

Thinking about something

Dad is so silly!

Next week is St. Patrick's day, so look out for a St. Patty's Day theme!

G.

King of the Jungle

It was only after I put last week's post up that I realized the frog hat was even more appropriate than I imagined, what with it being a leap year this year.  Thank you subconscious.

This week's hat was requested by Trevor.  He said March is coming in like a lion (or winter is going out like one) so we need a lion hat.  Once I completed the hat and showed it to him, he immediately regretted requesting it and told me he is worried that the kids are going to tease Henry for all his awesome hats some day.  I find this unlikely, and once he's in school, we'll tone the hats down a little.  Might as well put him in the funny hats while he is too young to protest, right?

For this hat I did the usual crochet base then added ears and a mane as well as some earflaps with braids to match so it looks like an extension of the mane.  I think it turned out pretty cute.

Trevor thinks this hat looks like Luna's Gryffindor hat in Harry Potter:

I think he's exaggerating.  It's nowhere near that outrageous.  Here we go, you can judge for yourselves:

Checking out the weird plant.  Then we had a minor fail which resulted in the next image:

Help me dad!  There was also a certain kitty cat trying to photobomb us the whole time (please note, the photobomb link can be NSFW so beware if you decide to click).  

Henry practicing his roar (or running out of patience for the photoshoot).  I've saved the best picture for last:

Success!  Wishing you all a wonderful week!

G.

The Frog Prince

Since we've been dreaming of spring lately, I thought it only appropriate that we have a spring-ish themed hat this week (one that our Granny would definitely approve of).  GG on the other hand has a different opinion of frogs.  I encourage you to listen to the audio in that link, so you get the full idea, there was a spring peeper living outside my parents home for weeks last year, and looks like the time is soon arriving when he'll be back!  

This hat was pretty simple, I just made a beanie and added eyes and a mouth.  I was going to put earflaps on it, but I ran out of yarn.  I've been sticking with the crocheted hats because they lend themselves beter to caricatures than knitted hats (crocheting holds its form better).  I'm beginning to wonder what we're going to do in the summer when it's too hot for hats.  I suppose we could just pose with them.  Anyone have any good ideas for summer hats we could create?  

Today I had a smiley little "snack pirate,"  enjoy! 

 Henry's eyes look a little like frog eyes here:

Froggy pose!

Family Day's a hoot!

Monday February 20th marks Family Day in Ontario.  My family celebrated a little early this year on a day when we could all be together.  We had an excellent day with the greater family and it looks like we'll get to have our own little family day on Monday with just our little family which will be lovely as well.

Here we are:

Oh no wait, that's just our shoes...Adidas all the way :)

Big thanks to Justin for being our photographer for these shots (we're being photobombed, can you see it)?:

 A slightly more obvious photobomb, oh Rosie:

Here's a closer shot of the owl hat

That handsome man (next to the little handsome man) is my dad, aka Poppa J.

Remember you can check out my etsy store now through the links on the right or at www.etsy.com/shop/hatsofftohenry 

Even if Monday isn't Family day for you, I hope this post made you think of yours!  Wishing you all a great weekend!

G.

Superbowl XLVI, Are you ready for some football?

I don't really watch football.  I don't understand what's going on and it seems to go on forever, whatever it is that is happening.  But my husband enjoys watching football, the superbowl at the very least.  I've decided I may as well embrace this because I have a lifetime of noisy boys cheering and shouting at the tv in my future.

As part of my new, lets say tolerance of the sport, our hat this week is in honour of Superbowl XLVI.  Henry feels he is too young to have a favourite team, so his photo shoot is team neutral.  Henry's just enjoying his doritos and beer...ok, maybe too little for that too, doesn't mean he isn't going to try!

Pattern by Beezy moms Creations

Now how do I get into this bag?

Oh, hi mom, are you taking my picture?

I don't think I'm old enough for this yet...

Well, ok, I'll try to get in

This bag is empty!  What a rip off!

My etsy shop is still under construction, but if you see a hat here that you simply must have, please feel free to email me at hatsofftohenry[at]gmail[dot]com and we can probably arrange something!

Good luck New York and New England!

Year of the Dragon!

As many of you know, this week marked the start of the Year of Dragon.  In honour of this celebration, as well as my own magnetism towards dragons, I decided we'd make a dragon hat for the little man.  Also featured in this photo shoot, my beloved Puff who was my childhood companion (and I suppose will now be Henry's best friend too).

I crocheted this hat, once again using Vanna's Choice yarn which is nice and washable and doesn't felt.  I made the pattern up on the fly, I really ought to write these things down, but I'm pretty sure I could recreate it.

At first I was worried that the ridge wouldn't stand up on this hat, but as you can see, that was no concern after all:

Daddy making him smile:

Best buds already!

Oh, hi Puff, where did you get that wicked bandana?

Ok mom, I'm done!

In other news, I am in the process of building some stock so that I can reopen my Etsy store, so stay tuned for that!  I will make an announcement when it's ready to go.

G.

Henry the elf, what's your favourite colour?

Leading up to Christmas, I have 2 hats planned, as such I've decided to post the first one today.  This hat will end our series of crocheted hats, it's also the simplest hat I've featured so far.  Again I used a pattern that I bought on etsy.  Usually I make my own patterns, but these ones were oh so cute, I couldn't resist.

Since starting this blog just a few weeks ago, we've gotten many compliments on Henry's many hats.  I'd like to apologize to anyone who's seen Henry sans hat the past few days.  It's been awfully warm for hats and it's too hot in his car seat so we don't always wear one in public.  But don't fret folks, Winter is well on it's way and as you all know it lasts forever in Ontario, so there will be many opportunities to see Henry's hats in person.  When Summer hits, we're going to have to come up with some creative solutions to the too-hot-for-hats problem.

Now with no further ado...

I tried to take a picture of Henry while he was awake:

 No dice.  Very well then little boy, I'll catch you while you sleep:

 Much better.  Helping Santa is hard work after all.

Bonus picture:  Henry with the big man (and no hat)!

Next week's hat is one of my own design, so I'll share the pattern with you all, just in case there are any knitters out there who want to give it a try (it's an easy one).

G.

Henry the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Hey everyone!  To start, I'd like to mention that you can now follow @hatsofftohenry on twitter (I added a handy button).  I also added some buttons so you can easily share posts on facebook and twitter (should you feel so inclined).  Oh, and of course, the mad hatter background :) Enough housekeeping, onto the hat!

With less than 2 weeks until Christmas, I thought it would be appropriate to have a few holiday themed hats.  This week is a bit of a hybrid on last weeks' hat, with a few epic elaborations.  To be honest, it may be too elaborate to wear out in public, but we'll probably do so anyways.  When I say elaborate, I mean elaborate to the point of having to stuff part of it so it would stand up.  I ended up using part of last weeks' hat pattern and another pattern for a christmas tree ornament (the ornament was awesome btw, see it here: Rory the Reindeer) to complete the look.

Making this hat brought me back to my childhood when I used to make pompoms by the dozen.  This one worked out well, nice to know I've still got it after not having made a pompom in at least 15 years. 

With no further ado, here is the hat!  (I had to take a few pictures so you can get the full picture)

 I know, he's asleep in every picture, it's easier to pose him this way!

 Next week: another holiday hat!  (Maybe a little less elaborate than this one, no antlers or ears).

G.