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!
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!
