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Friday, May 8, 2015

Hats & Pillows

Thank goodness I have a few months to work on this baby blanket.  I'm constantly thinking as i crochet this... crocheting blankets takes sooooo long!  I love it, but sometimes I just want to make something I can FINISH!  That's why lots of my family members got smaller crocheted items from me for Christmas. Enter: hats and pillows!

I only have a pattern for a few of these items, the others I free handed based on pictures and on generic hat patterns from my favorite blog (besides mine of course😜).Repeat Crafter Me If you haven't checked out her blog before, please do so now, she's amazing! 

So first up, my adorable nephews.   I have three of them! And they're all the perfect age to wear adorable crocheted hats of cartoon characters or animals... or animal cartoon characters! 

My first nephew, Ben, totally loves Thomas the Train. I saw lots of crocheted hats for Thomas on Pinterest, but nothing that really stood out to me.  So I decided to make my own for him, and i think it's the best Thomas the Train hat I've seen! Not to toot my own horn, but... Toot toot! 🚂



His little brother Holden is just over one years old, and loves Daniel Tiger. If you haven't watched this show yet, you should - or at least the opening sequence. If you ever watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood it will warm your heart.  Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is an animated continuation of the classic children's show, and it's just darling. I didn't have a pattern for this one either, but looked at a few pictures, and I even watched an episode of the show! The shape of the hat and the ears are loosely based on the repeatcrafterme.com tiger hat. 



My nephew Archer is still a little baby, and doesn't yet have a favorite cartoon or animal. If you remember, I made him this owl baby blanket while my sister was pregnant.  So I decided to continue the owl theme and made m an owl hat. The pattern for this one can be found in the blog I mentioned above. Here's the pattern: www.repeatcrafterme.com/crochet-owl-hat-pattern
Here's the hat:


My nephews aren't the only ones who got character hats from me for Christmas. My sister and her husband have a slight obsession with monkeys, they have since they were dating. So I decided to make them sock monkey hats from RepeatCrafterMe. LINKHERE.  I made them in two different colors; one in the classic sock monkey colors of gray and red, and the other in a brown/beige mix. They loved them, and they wear them proudly. 


My dad got a pillow made by me.  He's got a country home upstate and has always favored Americana decor, so I decided to make him a flag pillow.  I found the pattern on Pinterest, and it was really easy to follow.  He loved it, he said it was the perfect size to use behind his head while he reads his books.  You can see the pattern here: www.aseknc.blogspot.com/americana-pillow
Here's the pillow:



A while back, I posted a brainstorming session about pixel crochet in blankets and pillows. For my brother and sister in law's Christmas gift, I decided to combine two geek things, pixel art and Star Wars. I started this in the summer because it was going to finish up being a very large pillow (the finished piece was almost 20"x20").  I loved working on it piece by piece because it wasn't as hot as working on a blanket and having it draped all over. Each "pixel" is the first round of a Grammy square in a magic ring pulled really tight so there were as little holes as possible. I did a picture if R2D2 on one side and on the other I had a pixel version of Princess Leia and Han Solo. I used bright blue for the background to really help the colors pop. Im so happy with how it came out! 


Speaking of Star Wars, there's one more hat I want to show you. I didn't make this one for Christmas, but I made it by request for my cousin's kid. He loves Star Wars, I asked her who his favorite character was and I was told he loves Storm Troopers!  I have to admit, I was a little intimidated at first. Storm Trooper helmets are three dimensional, and they have a lot going on. I was afraid if I made it too flat it might look like Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. But I took my time (probably longer than I should have) and didn't second guess my choices when they were half way made, and I ended up with a pretty cool looking hat! To make it a little more Storm Trooper-y I did the braids in three solid colors instead of mixing all the colors together. I figured it looked a little more uniform, and a Storm Trooper helmet is a uniform after all! Sorry, no pattern for this one, I made it up as I was going along. 



I hope you enjoyed seeing the things I've worked on this winter. Now, if youlll excuse me, I have to get back to crocheting a certain baby blanket before this baby comes.... 

Happy crafting!
- The Craftmeister