Teddy Bear Hat: A Real Bear to Make

You wouldn't think that the hat above would be that hard to make, but it was. I actually made the hat three times before I made it correctly. I made it once without first doing the so-called magic loop. I didn't think I needed to do that. Big mistake. I just crocheted five SC and SL them together. Then, because it said you don't connect them ("Do not join rounds"), in my head I was thinking, Oh, turn! But it didn't say turn. So I ended up with a hat that had a huge gap in it. Stupid me.

I realized that it was a spiral. It would have been super helpful if the instructions had SAID, this hat is done in a spiral, rather than, Do not join the rounds. That really threw me off. As I mentioned in the beginning, there is a thing called a magic ring or adjustable ring, but I was too stubborn, so I tried it twice without and got this wavy crappy frisbee like thing. Man does my stubbornness suck!

Finally, I took the frisbee thing in to work to show Christina who has made oodles of these hats and said, what am I doing wrong. And she said, "Did you do the magic ring?"

"Uh. I don't know how to do the magic ring."

"Just go to Youtube. I learn everything from youtube!"

So here is how you do the magic ring. It's how I was able to do the hat AND the ears. If I didn't know the magic ring, I would have three small frisbee things and one unhappy Canadian friend with a baby with a cold head. Thank God for youtube. And this lady at crochet-mania.blogspot.com for making a tutorial. I'm not going to give you the pattern because it's written really poorly and I don't think I will use it again. But if you really want it, it's on ravelry. Search Osito Baby Hat, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Babies, Babies, and More Babies!

Many, many faculty at school are pregnant. Or their kids are! Or friends are. It's in the water. So, I have been making lots of baby related crocheted items. My favorite item to make is the baby hat. Below is Matt, who had twins. I made a boy monkey hat and a girl monkey hat for Alessandra and Anthony.
Below is a hat and bootie set I have made for Jennifer, who is one of the dog trainers at SEGD. She doesn't want to know what the sex is of her baby, so I had to go with a nature theme. Hence the leaves on the hat.

Jan's daughter is having a little boy. Jan runs all the systems behind the scenes in the library. Her nursery theme is Nature. So I did leaves and trees.

Hat 1 with some leaves. I tried a four leaf clover, but it didn't work out. This set of leaves was much easier to do.

Hat 2 I was particularly proud of. I thought the tree came out rather well. It is actually a patter for a fern, but put on the baby hat, I caled it a tree. 8-)

Hat 3 Just a nice hat with gender nuetral colors.

Zoe, an English teacher at school, is due in January. So I got to put my feminine side to work and use up some of my pink yarn.

Notice the pink booties. They seem big don't they? I think they are for gigantor baby. I'm just not a good bootie crocheter. I wasn't sure they would actually fit a human baby, so I made another pair. They look more normal. I need a good bootie pattern. If anyone has one, please share!

Here's a close up of the multi colored pink hat with three solid pink flowers.

Here is a photo of the solid pink hat with some solid white flowers. So, that's everyone that is pregnant for now. My work for the pregnant is now done!