Star Wars Fan Art

The Princess Leia hat was hard- it looked easy enough, a brown beanie with buns. But I redid the buns over and over to get them the right shape, size and consistency so they didn't flop or show stuffing through the brown yarn. the trick with the buns that makes the hat comfy is that I sewed the buns separately as long strips of crochet, then rolled them into tubes, then coiled them and sewed them into buns, and then made a circle for the back to cover the stitches and stabilize the coils. Each one of these has been so fun to design! I started with Yoda hats like the one above- then made Leia and R2D2. i am thinking about a Chewie now, need to look at some more photos and think about it a while! These have been commissions, I would not have thought of the Star Wars Theme on my own but they have been great fun- i will say those buns were a huge challenge to figure out!

Orders and ordering

I have a couple hat orders on the table now. The Princess Leia hat- it took me a while to wrap my head around how I was going to make it, but I think my idea will work. I have even found a nice solid dark brown.
More ILY hats- I gave a hat to the NCSD family fun day as a door prize and several people said they wanted to order those. That was a fun hat to make! I am hoping to make many more.
And a Gir hat- Invader Zim! I love the big eyes and the square tongue, I am looking for the right green to start that one- I would like a sturdy yarn, like Red Heart.
Also a couple of folks have asked how much I would charge for a bag made from recycled bags- and I honestly don't know! the can cozies are not an issue, but larger projects from the recycled bags strain my hands so I will need to come up with a schedule where I switch off from one project to another over the summer.

Also I made a monkey hat and several folks have asked about other children's hats with different animals on them so I will play with bears and frogs and butterflies this summer too.

Plus of course the stained glass afghan will be simmering away in the background!

Showing off the Goods

I wanted to talk a little about presentation of crafts. It is VERY important and I was not even aware how much until I made a cute little peach hat with bunny ears. It was a commission and I was so confident that it would look adorable! I wanted to take a photo before I sent it off, in case I did not get to see a photo of the hat on the baby. There are no babies at my house, so I borrowed a baby-doll of similar size and took the top photo which is cute.
And then I saw the photo of the real doll baby wearing the hat! Oh HOW cute is that? I realized on the spot that your model for a craft product does not change the product but it enables you to show off exactly what you had envisioned. I KNEW that hat was adorable but the bottom photo shows everyone what I had in mind when I made it so much better.
So, now I need to figure out where to find models for various sized hats more easily! ^__^

For this hat I used Caron's "Simply Soft" 4 ply acrylic yarn. It is a basic beanie with white picot trim, and small bunny ears, also picot trimmed

I also want to thank Rae LeGrone for allowing me to publish the photo of her darling daughter in my blog.

Made this to donate for Family Fun Day at NCSD. adult sized, 100% Acrylic yarn the hat is in NCSD school colors, blue and white and features a hand signing "I love you" as an appliqué.
What I liked about this project- using the blue heathered yarn- I love the way it looks in a hat. i loved making the "ILY" hand, and sewing it into the symbol- it is always fun to make a new challenge. I made the body of the hat white so that the hand could be blue and show up really well.


this week I hope to go to the store and get the right brown color to make a Princess Leia hat with the cinnamon buns on the sides. I will be making a youth size and an adult size- like the Yoda ears I want the ears to be firm enough to keep their shape, I think have an idea to play with that will enable me to crochet a "scaffold" inside the bun instead of just stuff it- this will make it hold it's shape without being heavy. i hope.

Still working on the butterflies, and granny squares- i am so excited about the new yarns!

ok I inherited some vintage yarn. Jodie's Maw-Maw Gilda sent it up to NC and I have it in my hot lil paws... the colors are amazing and as vibrant as they were in the 1970's... I cannot WAIT to get these over my hook! The multi with rust, orange and yellow just BEGS to be put into Granny Squares, esp since the yarn it from Maw-Maw. David's mom has a vintage blanket with six-sided Grannies, and i was looking at it yesterday and wouldn't you know that SAME exact yarn was on her blanket! i am going to borrow the afghan and make a few of the six sided squares, but i am also going to make some traditional granny squares- the center colors require little yarn- and make a sweater or something- I have a sweater pattern from that general era and it is all 'retro' now. i will keep y'all posted on how that is going- I am just SOOOO excited about these colors and yarn! The yarn aisle at AC Moore seems so tame now!

on another note, I think I have figured out how to make the Princess Leia-like hat to match the Yoda- like hats, I just need to find a good dark brown. What I have here at the house is too light or not the right tone. The Buns were a challenge to figure out how to engineer, but then, so were Yoda's ears.