My little Monster part 2

Hello everyone, 

This week I am extra organized and in fact, one hat ahead of the game, so I've decided to delight you all a day or two early with some new pictures.  I made another monster hat this week because I couldn't resist.  

Also I'm facing a new dilemma:  lack of yarn variety.  Of all the things I miss about living in the city, one of the biggest is that you can get anything anytime when you are downtown.  Here in the suburbs, I've got to plan and research and drive.  I miss the days when Romni Wools was my local yarn shop.  This week we tried out Soper Creek Yarn in Bowmanville, which was pretty good, but nothing ever compares to Romni.  If you've never been to Romni wool and are a knitter/crocheter/fibre artist of any kind, I highly recommend you go.  It's incredible.  In fact, I've included a picture of the upstairs here for you:

Yup, that's all yarn.  Not to mention there's a basement with discounted yarn.  This pic isn't even an illusion, the place is that big, with that much yarn.  Sigh.  I'm going to have to go on a mission there sometime soon.  It's not exactly stroller friendly...I'll let you know how it goes...

Now onto the hat: 

Well, that's a nice smile Henry, but we can't see your hat or your new friend (Penelope the empathic monster, pattern courtesy Rebecca Danger [or rebeccadanger.typepad.com])

This is more like it!  Still can't quite see Penelope though

What's that sound?

Oh, hi mom, is it picture time again?

Matching ear flops:

If you have time to take a look, I've finally been working on updating my Etsy shop.  

  

Next week we'll take a break from the monsters, I have a special Mother's Day hat planned!  Hope you all have a great weekend!

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.

Will you be my Valentine?

I know there are a lot of Valentine's Day haters out there.  But I don't hate Valentine's Day.  Sure, it's commercial and expensive, but it's also nice to have a day set aside just for lots of love.  I thought today I would first share a few pictures from my own love story:

This is a super oldie from my Aunt Judy's wedding.  Check out that long blonde hair!

 This is probably one of my favourite pictures of Trevor and I.  It's from our engagement photoshoot, I don't know what T said, but I was clearly not impressed (but still amused):

Here we are at our wedding which was the most incredible day ever:

Another wedding pic, laughing like a maniac

And now, our little family, finally home together!

You may notice that I have added a link to my etsy shop at the top of the sidebar.  Not too much to see yet, but please go take a look!  More to come of course, but I thought I may as well start somewhere.

Henry's hat this week is once again knit.  I was going for more of a skull and heart pattern, but I had some challenges carrying 3 colours, so I had to incorporate the red more which makes it look more like skeletons and hearts.  It seems to look ok though.  Here he is, posing with some chocolates:

He's such a cutie, how could you resist being his Valentine?  For the record, his sleeper says I love Mommy, looks like I'm the lucky girl this year :)

Love Valentine's Day or hate it, I hope you all have a wonderful week!

G.

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.

Barrel of Monkeys

Ok, so we will call this the official start of the project.  Our hat this week is a sock monkey hat!  I had actually started this hat a long time ago, but I hate doing the finishing touches, so I had set it aside to finish later.  The other day I thought to myself, "You really ought to finish the sock monkey hat" so I did and here we are!  I am quite pleased with it, I think I sewed the mouth on a little sideways, but I'm not so much of a perfectionist and I don't think anyone would notice unless I told them (whoops, foot in mouth)!

This particular hat is crocheted which is kind of unusual for me, I typically make knit hats because I find it easier to go in the round that way.  This hat uses a kind of a hybrid amigurumi pattern.  It was pretty easy considering my inexperience with crocheted hats, not to mention this particular style of crocheting.

I bought the pattern for this hat (along with 2 other patterns for similarly adorable hats) off Etsy (the seller was Beezy Mom's Creations in case you are interested).  If you've never heard of Etsy, I have to say, I highly recommend the website.  It's essentially a hand crafters marketplace which allows individuals to sell their items without having to set up an independent website and have to pay for advertising.  In most cases you pay by paypal (which I prefer anyways).  I recommend you go check it out next time you're in the mood for some online shopping.  You can run a search or just start with the featured items on the etsy homepage.  

Now, with no further ado, here is a sleepy Henry in his car seat:

Stay tuned: the next few weeks we'll be featuring holiday themed hats!

G.