Large Crochet Graduation Hat And Pattern

Ok, how do say this, my crochet, adult-size crochet hat is…not great? A failure? A partial failure? Totally cool? I’m not sure how I feel about it.

As I mentioned before, I get quite a few questions about how to adjust my small keepsake crochet graduation hats to be wearable. Well, I like a challenge (sometimes), and I decided to see what I could do. I couldn’t just increase the size of the little hats because a real human head needs something different. I went for it and this is what happened.

Lessons learned

I actually like the beanie part. It fit really nicely on the head so I might keep this for later use on other hats.

As you could predict, a large crochet square isn’t going to be very rigid. In fact, even with two strands (I used two strands), it’s quite floppy. It looked ridiculous. I tried to think how I could fix it and came up with two ideas.

Another Crochet Phone Case

The last few days of the school year brought about a slow-down in crochet projects. I’ve been wanting a pink phone case so I decided to make one. The kids liked it so much, I threw it in the prize box. Then one day, I forgot my phone case so I ‘borrowed’ the one in the prize-box. The kids called me on it so I made a new one and put theirs back in there. I’m pretty sure someone picked it so it’s a good thing I corrected the error of my ways!

I used two strands of yarn for this one, pink and white, and used the knit stitch and simple stitch in tunisian crochet. At first I was worried it would be too thick but it was perfect. It hugged my phone just right. 🙂

Crochet Graduation Hats

The school year is over, and on the last week we have a party for our 5th graders as we send them off to middle school. It has become a tradition that I make them all a small crochet graduation hat as a keepsake.

This is from the tutorial I posted on YouTube

The caps I gave away last year

I made the little caps again but couldn’t decide how I wanted to present them. In the past, I have placed them on top of a stack of supplies like pencils and pens. I have dangled them from a candy wreath and sometimes I just handed them over. Candy is always a hit, so this year, I filled a baggie with Skittles and tried to make it look like a little face. I stuffed the bag into the hat. I wasn’t sure it would work but the kids loved it.

The latest round.

The face isn’t very artistic but the kids loved it.

Around this time of year, I get more views and questions on YouTube about the graduation hat. A few times, someone has asked me how to adapt it to make a real hat. Well, you can do the same thing as in the video but just make it bigger but after thinking about it, a few minor adjustments might be needed to make it sit right. I realized some might appreciate a video on it and as  I have no other pressing projects, I started working on a wearable version.

So far so good

I plan to make a YouTube video on it if it works out. So far, the head part seems to fit just right. I’m practicing with some yarn I had on hand which is why it’s grey, but once I have the pattern ironed out, I’ll pick a school color. I’m seeing a lot of red/burgundy and blue so it will probably be one of those colors.

Stay tuned, this might turn out interesting. 🙂

 

Hilarious Crochet Fail – Mermaid Ears

Whenever you attempt something new, failure is always lurking. That’s life. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. After a few years of hiatus, we once again have passes to Disneyland and I wanted to make Mickey ears, all kinds of Mickey ears. I see so many cool ones being worn all over the parks and I think, I can make those in crochet! So far, I have made exactly one set and it was cute but not that impressive.

I decided my next attempt would be ears that would reflect my love of mermaids. I looked at pictures for inspiration and saw a few that I could translate into crochet, easy.

Maybe not so easy, but definitely doable.

But I wanted to try something different first. Wouldn’t a mermaid tail on the ears look super cool? I found one somewhere but haven’t been able to find it again. I also wanted to make the ears stiff so they wouldn’t flop on the headband so I used three strands of yarn. I pictured it in my head and I thought it could work. I thought starting with purple and ending with green would look very mermaidy.

Crochet Goals For July

July is here and I can’t believe I’m halfway through the summer already. That means I only have one more month to finish all the goals I had for the summer before I go back to work. Having said that, I did accomplish a lot so far, crochet and otherwise. I have ticked off a bunch of tasks off my summer list (like getting the leaky outdoor water faucet fixed), so I’m very proud of myself.

Now, I just have to get the house painted, get a new fence installed (our backyard fence is literally breaking apart and is on the verge of tipping over!), re-organizing our garage, getting our sprinklers repaired and getting some plumbing issues taken care of. I think that’s all of it! Wait, I need to clean up my desktop and back up everything. That’s actually a monumental task. Oh, and lose 15 pounds. Nah, I’ll leave that for when I go back to work.

On the crochet front, I want to finish the first level of the certification course this week and have it sent off by Saturday. I’ve finished the last project in lesson five. I needed to find or design a beginner project to go with the three lesson plans I have to turn in. I was going to make some slippers but slippers don’t quite reflect my personality. Instead, I wanted to make a toy. I decided one of my square rag dolls would fit the bill.

He’s ready to go!

There’s quite a bit of sewing, so hopefully that doesn’t disqualify it as a ‘beginner’ project. It’s nothing but single crochet squares and rectangles. If I pass the course, I’d like to sign up for level two and maybe finish that off before I go back to work in August, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

I finally started the mermaid puppet while in San Diego last week.

This might be a project I do for level two of the certification course.

Freebie Friday – Crochet Graduation Cap

At the end of every school year, it’s become a tradition that I make our 5th graders little crocheted graduation caps in our schools colors. It’s their last year at our school as they are ready to move on to middle school. The year has flown by and we are at the end once again. I made five little caps this year and I thought it would make a nice Freebie Friday post.

How I make them

The caps are super simple to make and the kids love receiving them.  The hat is just a square and a rectangle sewn together.

I use a large hook size like an I or a J. I grab whatever hook size feels good with 2 or 3 strands of yarn.

The top portion of the hat is just a small square. I eye-ball it every time but usually end up with about 5 or 6 single crochets per row.

I make the same amount of rows as I have in single crochets per row. For example, if I have 5 single crochets in each row, I make 5 rows as well. I fold it corner to corner to check that it’s a square.

On my last row, I leave a really long tail so I can sew around the edge of the square. It gives it a little finishing touch. Sometimes I single crochet around the edge.

Then I make the lower portion. Again, I eye-ball it but usually end up with about 13 or 14 single crochets per row and I make 3 rows. I sew the ends together and then sew the tube to the top part of the hat. I add a button and a tassel and I have a hat.

Here’s a video showing the process.

Freebie Friday- Pattern – Mom’s Crochet

It’s always such a nice surprise to discover something my mother made that I had never seen before. Inevitably, I want to figure out how to make it, even if I never plan to, you know, actually make it. I go about this by looking at the piece to see if I can figure it out myself, and when I fail at that, I look it up online. That has various success rates. Sometimes, I’m lucky and I find a pattern, but most of the time I don’t. This is because I’m looking up the pattern based on how the item looks to me. The pattern might be out there in cyberspace but I don’t have the right search words to find it.

True story (mostly, it depends on who you ask)

Sibling rivalry is real. It is alive and thriving with my siblings. Whilst visiting my sister, she regaled me with a story about how she discovered a bag underneath her bed. A bag that had been there for so long, she didn’t even know how long. For one reason or another, she pulled it out wondering what was in there. That’s when she found a blanket that my mother gave her that she hadn’t looked at in years. Turns out, it was double-sided and very thick and pretty. She had made it for one of this sister’s kids.

The picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s heavy and  stretchy and prettier than it looks.

Freebie Friday – Bavarian Crochet Square

So I gave my star stitch sweater away to one of my sisters. The other sister is still waiting for her granny square sweater so I am diligently back to plugging up holes. That leaves me with no sweater…again. I’m back to making a new sweater for myself. I’ve been visiting (more like moving in) Pinterest looking for inspiration, ideas, stitches, granny squares, anything I might like to make a new sweater. I saw a Bavarian granny square I found interesting. I tried following the pattern and in my hubris, I thought I had it down and kept going on my own. What I ended up with was huge and definitely not a square. I used a bigger hook size than the one called for in the pattern and a thicker yarn so it naturally came out big (but still bigger than I expected).

It was a little under a foot long from one end to the other! I thought it was pretty but not exactly right. More importantly, it wasn’t square.

Scary Life Size Doll Head

I mentioned in a previous post that I was crocheting a life size doll of myself at work. Alas, I had to place it on the back burner in lieu of other, more pressing projects. Well, it’s day has come! I will not pick up any other projects until that doll is done. So I in that spirit…

I resumed work on the head. My little minions (Kindergarteners) couldn’t help themselves from helping me work on the doll. I had completed the head and had embroidered the face, using their suggestions of course. It was ready for stuffing.

Before I stuffed, I had to get up for something and left my work on the table. I can see all of you shaking your heads thinking to yourselves that I was asking for it. I see no pity in your eyes. I did indeed ask for it. I came back to a student running around with his hand in the opening of the doll head, using it like a puppet. A long string of yarn was tailing him around the room as it unwound from the ball of yarn. I quickly had him bring it back. Luckily, I had my stitch marker in so it didn’t unravel.

Can someone help me run around the room? I’m bored.

Now that she was rescued, it was time for stuffing. They love helping me stuff so I let them

Freebie Friday – Crochet Poop Emoji

 

Poop emoji, I can’t get away from it. The kids love it. Lately, it’s the biggest request I get from the students. They think it’s hilarious. I refused to  make it for the prize box. I could just hear all the silly poop jokes an inappropriate sounds. Let’s not even mention all the hijinks I’d be subjected to in the name of comedy. I did relent for the craft fair though. Hey, if they wanted to buy it who was I to argue? The parents would have to deal with the shenanigans at home. I just needed to figure out how to make one.

I went online to find other crochet poop emojis and what I found wasn’t exactly what I was