Feeling Fruity (Baby Sun Hats)

Okay, I'm the first to admit that I've been offline for awhile. Between mothering, having family in town, cleaning up the aftermath of having family in town, friends in crisis, and trying to find time to network in my day job (you know, the one that will pay the bills), creativity has had to fall to the wayside.

But in the process of cleaning up the apartment, I had to organize my yarn stash. And I was appalled at how much yarn I had amassed that was just sitting, doing absolutely nothing. I'm sure my stash isn't the biggest or the most colorful, but in a one bedroom apartment, and belonging to someone who prides herself on never buying more that she'll use... it was an abomination at best. And so I set to work creating.

I decided on baby hats. As my dear husband points out, I excel at hats. For some reason, they're just something I can do really, really well. And I wanted to be a little different. I started out wanting to make an apple hat, but then I did a search on Etsy and found several. My daughter was wearing a watermelon onesie at the time, and so I decided on a watermelon. Again, a search on Etsy yielded several watermelon hats, but I noticed that none of them were sun hats. All of them were rolled brim or beanie style hats. And none of them represented the rind accurately.

I set to work with my first two hats: a red watermelon and a pink watermelon. The red is the original. I added the pony beads as an afterthought; I realized that seedless watermelon just wasn't all that cute. The pink I did because I remembered my daughter had a pink and green fruit dress. I thought it was covered in watermelons. Turns out, it's covered in strawberries. And that's how the strawberry hat was born. The last hat was a pomegranate. I don't know why, other than I didn't see any other pomegranate hats on Etsy. So I figured, "Why not?"

All the hats but the red watermelon have their beads crocheted into the fabric, making them more child-safe... but you should still keep an eye on a teething baby - they're little jaws are strong enough to crack metal beads if given enough time. And all color changes are carried through under the stitches, so the body of the hats are all done in one continuous piece. The strawberry features a bendable stem, thanks to a piece of pipe cleaner inside the stem, and the pomegranate's arlis' end was sewn on after the fact. Each one is sized to 0-6 months, depending on the baby. Brie is almost 3 months, and they are just slightly big on her. But then, she has a small head.

Lessons Learned:
1) I have too much yarn
2) Baby hats are incredibly fun to make
3) Crocheting star patterns is much easier than I realized
4) Doing color changes simultaneously with increases is relatively difficult
5) It is easier to add beads as you're crocheting than it is to sew them on after the fact

Look for these very soon in my Etsy store (as I must post them quickly in order to make myself reeligible for EtsyKids membership).