Dinosaur Hat!

A couple years ago, I made DS a balaclava. It was red, and tied in the front, and had a mohawk, and was awesome. He loved it. So did lots of other people.

Anyways, I made the pattern available for free, but I'm really super glad that I wrote everything down, because it has come in handy again.

After two winters, and many washes, the mohawk portion of his old hat went from being a fluffy adorable mess to a matted nasty dead animal on top of his head. Not cool.

So, I decided to make him a new one!

I asked him which colours he wanted, as well as how he wanted it decorated. Not a mohawk this time, but a dinosaur.

I set to work with some blue yarn, and an idea. I worked the balaclava first, then crocheted 8 triangles & sewed them together, turned them inside out, stuffed them, and attached them along the top center. Two semi-domes, stuffed & attached, and lastly, two random trapezoid shapes attached for eyelids.

He loves it :)

Gnome Hat & Tawashis

I was recently part of the Givers & Needers swap round 10 on craftster.

I sent supplies to two lovely folks who both handcrafted me thank you gifts.

I also received supplies from two very generous women, and I made thank you gifts for them. For the amazing rlynn, I crocheted her young daughter a gnome hat, inspired by the amazing April Draven, and some Tawashis.

Here are a coupld shots of her daughter wearing the hat - how cute!

Child's/Toddler's Tie-Front Mohawk Balaclava

Last winter, I started making a balaclava for my son that would be adorned with a mohawk.

I couldn't find any patterns that I liked, so I decided to wing it. The first couple attempts were useless.

But, then I made one that was actually wearable!

There were some flaws, of course. Like it was too long above the face, and a bit too narrow, making it a chore to get it onto his head. The shaping in the back was sloppy and pointy, but the mohawk covered most of that; it was too long in the back of the head and neck, making it always ride up. But he wore it, because I was damned proud of it!

He went away for a weekend, and the hat was lost. I was sad, but then I turned it around and realized that it was an opportunity to improve upon the pattern. This one in blues and browns didn't match most of his winter clothes anyways, just the one set.

So, I sat down with some more yarn and worked on making improvements.

A couple days later, I presented him with this:

It is a much better fit, and doesn't have the shaping issues of the previous version. Instead of a buttoned neck, I opted to make this one longer and have it tie-front more like a scarf. The nice thing about the ties is they offer two wearing options: I can fold them up on themselves and tie them like in the pictures, of I can leave them down over his upper back and shoulders to keep snow out of his coat.

This time, I wrote down what I did, and am sharing the pattern.

I'm also in the process of making another one in blues for my friend's 7 year old.

Toddler's/Child's Mohawk Tie-Front Balaclava

Pattern no longer available...sorry!