handprint plaques

i just love little baby/kid hands. and since the kiddos will only be little for a short time i wanted to preserve the cuteness. to make these plaques i made home-made play-doh to indent the kids hands in. then i pushed model magic down into the hardened play-doh so the hands are raised. the wooden plaque and letters can be found at any craft store. i stained the plaques to match the woodwork in the house and just seal-coated the letters for contrast. use your favorite bonding agent and . . . voila! i had intended to hang these in the living room one over the other, but macklynn wanted them above each girls' place at the dinner table. she's a smart cookie, so that's where they hang.

dress

well, my hook has been neatly stored in my crochet bag for a little while now. i have been busy collecting, scanning, organizing, printing, and "scrap-booking" to create a pictorial biography for my husband's grandma. crazy busy stuff.
BUT
thanks to a fellow blogger and seamstress (and coincidentally a friend from about 15-20 year ago) i was brought back to the sewing world to create dresses for my girls.
there is no pattern as i don't sew with patterns. (although it's probably about time i figure out how to use a pattern)

cupcake hat

Here is one of the many cupcake hats I have made. Writing out a pattern for this one is pretty difficult because, like a lot of my work, it takes checking and adjusting and using your noodle to figure it out on the part of the crochet-er.
We start with the bottom of the hat, the cupcake paper around the forehead. This is actually made traveling around the head, not up it. Start with ch. approx. 10. (how many depends on the height of the cupcake paper) turn work and DC 3rd ch. from hook and across the row. This makes 8 DC. ch. 2 turn work and DC across placing stitches in the back loop only of the bottom st. continue making this elongated rectangle to be long enough to go the circumference of the head. (by placing stitches in only the back loop, it will created the ridged effect) When rectangle is long enough to go around head, sew ends together to form a short tube.
The frosting part of the hat is where the DIY method comes into play. I use the same concept to start this for all my hats, however: On one side of the tube tie your white yarn in and pull up a loop. ch. 2 and start DC around the tube in the side of the stitches of the tube being careful not to stretch the tube out to cram stitches in. In the end, I usually end up with approx. 55 st. In the last st. before connecting back to the start of this white row, instead of DC use a TC to add height to the st. Then instead of connecting ends of the white row, start your next row on top of first row. Here is where you need to start flaring out your work so the cupcake has a puff top. start increasing in size by periodically placing 2 DC in the bottom st. (I use a pattern with this to keep an even feel around the head: 1 Dc, then 2 Dc, then 1 Dc, then 2 Dc, and so on for the entire 2nd round of white, then the 3rd round I switch patterns to 1 Dc, then 1Dc, then 2Dc, and repeat. Fourth round of white is 1 Dc all around.) After an acceptable amount of flare is achieved, you need to start decreasing to close in the top. Decrease by skipping stitches every now any then. If the hat doesn't close in well, you need to skip stitches more often. If it ends up like a dome, you have skipped too often then not often enough. The rate of skipping changes as you work, so don't get caught in a pattern until the end. Take a feel for how flat or or sharp of an angle you want the frosting to be on the head. When you are down to about 5 stitches in circumference at the top of the hat, pull taught and tie off to close the hole. You now have a cupcake shaped hat, all you need is the accessories.
The cherry on top is just a basic ball. With reddish yarn ch.3 and SC 5 st. in first ch. to create a disc. Immediately start to SC on top of first round of the disc but increase in size by adding multiple stitches in each stitch. How many you add will determine how big this cherry gets, it's up to you. To keep this disc from staying flat you will need to only increase for about one round, then switch to one sc per stitch for a round, then start decreasing to close in this newly formed dome into a ball. When you are closed into about 3-5 stitches, pull taught and tie. off. tie cherry to top of hat.
The sprinkles are easy, just loop and tie fun-fetti yarn or ribbon periodically onto frosting part of hat.

Flower Hat

The other day I had a few hours to kill and a hook and a skein with me. Here's what came out of it.
This flower hat is a one year birthday gift for my niece, but I think I will be making more of them for my girls. (I will probably be felting it for my kids for a more autumnal feel to it)
Anywho, this starts with ch. 3. DC 6 times in the first ch. this makes a disk. continue using only DC stitches onto the first row of DC and increasing in size of the disc. (to increase in size, periodically place 2 DC into a stitch, do this as often as needed to created the shape of a domed disc). when disc is as wide as the head you are making this hat for, then stop increasing and just stitch one DC per stitch to form the tube part of the hat. (it takes approx. 55-60 stitches in circumference to go around the head of my kids). when tube of hat is long enough to reach brow bone start the flare brim. to flare the brim, alternate 1 DC in a stitch then 2 DC in a stitch, then 1 DC, then 2 DC and so on for on round around tube. The next round should alternate 1 DC in a stitch, then 1DC in a stitch, then 2DC in a stitch and repeat all the way around.
The flowers are a bit tricky.
The basic flower is a variation of a basic star pattern. start with ch.4. then DC 15 st. in first ch., sl.st. in first DC to connect the disc. *ch.5. sc. in 2nd ch. from hook. then hDC in 3rd ch. from hook, then DC in 4th chain from hook and TC in 5th ch. from hook. look back to the disc., skip 2 DC and sl.st. in 3rd DC. repeat from * 4 more times around disc until back to the start. you now have a 5 pointed star.
the second row around the star is to fatten it up and form the points into petals. on each point, in the first ch. of the first side of point sc., in 2nd ch., hDC, in 3rd ch. DC, in 4th ch. TC, in final chain (the tip of the point) TC 3 stitches. then going down the other side of the point, in the first st. TC. in the 2nd st. DC, in the 3rd st. hDC in the 4th st. sc.
continue this pattern for all points.
round 3 of flower: on each point, in the first st. of the first side of point (the point is rounded at this stage) sc. in the 2nd st. hDC in the 3rd st. DC in the 4th stitch Tc in the 5th and 6th sts. TC. at the center of the rounded point TC 3 sts. then going down the other side of the point, TC in the next st. then DC, then hDC, then sc.
continue this pattern for all the points. (the points should be very rounded now and it is looking like a flower, not a star)
sew flower onto hat.
the other 4 petals to sew onto the main flower are as such: ch.4. in the first ch. DC 3 sts. ch.2, turn work and continue sc. in first DC then 2 DC in 2nd DC, then sc. in 3rd DC. ch. 2, turn work. sc. in first sc. then DC, then 2 TC in middle DC, then DC, then sc. across to form row 3. ch. 2 turn work, and make row 4 as follows: sc, DC, 2 TC, 2 TC, DC, sc. tie off.
sew 3 petals to fan out on flower on hat.
roll 4th petal and sew end to keep the roll and sew onto center of flower.
p.s.- if you choose to felt this, remember when felting to make the hat bigger and allow for shrink room

fruit hats

Lately I've been crocheting hats. Mostly because summer is too hot to have afghans on my lap while working on them, but also, it seems to be baby/toddler mania in my life right now, and those little buggers are great guinea pigs for hats. The fruit hat craze started with my youngest, Kayla. The shirt I picked for her one year pictures reminded me of watermelon colors, so I created the watermelon hat for her. This snowballed into one for my 3 year old, my 6 month old niece, a co-workers 2 grand-daughters, another niece, and so on.
The basic concept is this: (I use about an I hook and medium tension) with pink yarn, chain for however long it takes to go the circumference of the child's head. (approximately 55 ch.) sl stitch to connect ends of chain and continue on to DC in each chain until you loop back around to the start, then procede DC onto the first row of DC. this forms a spiral. continue with the DC spiral until tube is long enough to extend from top of head to brow bone (approx. 15 rows). end spiral by decreasing to HDC then to SC then tie off ends. switch to white yarn, tie onto last stitch of pink, ch. 2 and alternate around the tube 2 DC in first stitch then 1 DC in next stitch, then 2 DC in next stitch then 1 DC in next, . . . . . you get the picture, until back to start of white. (this starts the flare edge on the brim of the hat) sl. stitch into first white stitch and tie off. switch to green yarn. start the same way as you did for the white yarn. alternate first row of green onto white stitches as follows, 1 DC in first stitch, 1 DC in second stitch, 2 DC in third. repeat pattern all the way around. slip stitch into first green st., ch. 2 and finish with final row of green 1 DC per stitch until all the way around, sl. st. to the first st. in row and tie off.
Now for the finishing touches, go back to the start of the pink, weave about 8" length of cut yarn through the row of ch.. pull taught to gather top and tie off.
use approx. 6" of brown yarn lengths to tie around stitches periodically on pink work area to simulate watermelon seeds. (ribbon would work well, too)

This concept can be used for other hats as well. An example is the kiwi hat I made for my niece. the only difference is that on the final row of brown I added fun fur yarn to the brown and crocheted with both strands at once. I didn't want a completely fuzzy edge so by keeping the brown acrylic in there, it muted the fuzzy factor a bit.