Jayne Cobb Hat

Well this is almost a year late in the posting.  I found this pattern on Ravelry last year and aimed to make one for my hubby who is a huge fan of Firefly and Serenity.  I asked for my sister's help and also got quite a bit of instruction from a few YouTube channels.  There really is nothing to stop someone from learning a new skill with all the information out there.

Anyway I was miserable with it for the first while as I thought I remembered what a single crochet was like but somehow fumbled it and was using more of a slip stitch to do this hat.  I was more than half-way through with the pattern and the hat wouldn't have even fit a newborn.  Something had to be wrong.  Yep of course.  This is when YouTube came to my rescue and I relearned some basic skills.  On second attempt (or was it third? or fourth?) I was able to make this hat with no issues and much more quickly.  I think the last "real" attempt only took me a few hours and considering it was my first hat ever attempted I didn't think that was too shabby.

End result (my project link here so you can find the pattern by Dryope).  My stitch/tension is probably a little more snug than most so I think the hat ended up being a little snug.  I may make another someday but we'll see.  It did fit my 2 year old daughters at the time.  Seren was willing to model it for me.  Can you guess where her name came from?? Seren...Serenity.  Yep my husband came up with the idea and I actually loved it.  We later discovered it's a popular name in the UK so it worked out pretty well I think.

Seren Cobb...she was so excited to model it for me

Hubs showing off his new hat and shirt from Christmas 2013

Infant Sun Hats

I made it my summer's ambition to make my girls sun hats.  I didn't want to buy a pattern.  So I found a free downloadable pattern online.  How hard could it be?  That's what I thought.  But after more than half a dozen hats "finished" and only one or two that were moderately okay...I broke down...I bought a real pattern.  We were going to visit my parents in Florida in less than a week.  Nothing like cutting it down to the wire.  I finished up the last hat of two the night before our flight.  They turned out pretty darn cute.  I plan to use the same pattern to make fall/winter hats.

 I added a ribbon on the inside so the we could tie the hats on for windy days and boat rides

 I did a zig-zag stitch in order to catch the underside seam also (I missed it the first try)