New Hats for Christmas

Every year my husband's family has their big family Christmas party. At the party we do Christmas bags for the kids. We have fabric bags for each of the kids that we fill with little, inexpensive toys and candy, stocking stuffer type stuff. We usually find some little $1 toys for each of the kids and I try to make a few things. Most years each of our kids get a new hat in their bags because that is something that I can make easily and inexpensively, and it is small enough that it fits well in the bag.

Some years I have done all animal or character hats. This year I kind of tried to stay away from that, as you can see from the picture that almost worked but not quite. I didn't use patterns for any of the hats, I made all of them up as I went along and have already shared a couple of the patterns.

My oldest son's hat was made with Red Heart Reflective yarn. He thought it was pretty cool when I showed him what happens when you take a picture of it with the flash.

I received a skein of Red Heart Reflective in neon yellow from Red Heart, along with some other yarn to try out. I thought my oldest son would think it was cool because of the reflective part, and the color, if paired with blue would match his new shoes and are almost Seahawks colors (a little too yellow instead of green but close enough for him). I just made a simple double crochet beanie and finished it off with a couple of rows of single crochet with some blue yarn, I think it was Red Heart Super Saver but I'm not positive, either way it was a little thinner that the bulky weight reflective yarn so I just tried to crochet a little loose on that part. Super simple and he liked it. It is sometimes nice to use a yarn that gives the hat interest because then a simple double crochet hat is still interesting and fun, no fancy stitches or patterns needed. 

My oldest daughter's hat I already shared here along with the pattern to make your own. She got a hat and infinity scarf made from Red Heart's Boutique Swanky yarn. When she opened it up the first thing she said was "Mom, look, I got sparkles". I think she was pretty happy with it.

My 4 year old is kind of into Pokemon, and by kind of I mean he can get a little obsessed at times. He has never played the game but he watches Pokemon on Netflix and we have checked out lots of books from the library. He can tell you all kinds of facts about Pokemon that I don't understand, what they evolve into or from, what attacks they have, what types they are. His favorite Pokemon is Pikachu. Probably a month or two ago I started making a Pokeball hat for him. I thought that that would be something pretty easy to make. I showed it to him when it was almost finished, I think I just needed to sew on the circle on the front. He was not excited about it at all. He wanted a Pikachu hat not a Pokeball. The next time we were at Walmart we walked past the craft section and he walked over to the yarn and said "remember Mom, you need to buy some yarn". I told him I didn't need to buy any right now but he reminded me that I needed some yellow so I could make his Pikachu hat. I ended up buying a skein and making the hat part pretty quickly. I had a yellow earflap hat made and sitting on my sewing table for at least a month before I finally got around to tackling the face and ear things (I think they are ears but I'm not really sure), I finished it a few days before the party.

He was pretty thrilled with it and wore it around that night. That made me pretty happy to see but the best part for me was when my oldest son looked over and saw it. He asked where it came from and I told him I made it. He got a really amazed look on his face and signed, "Wow, that looks really good. Good job Mom." That pretty much made my night. It isn't often that I get that from one of my kids.

My little Goose's hat is another that I already shared along with the pattern. You can find it here in both toddler and 6-9 month size. It was made with the new Heads Up yarn from Red Heart.

Last but not least, my little bear got a simple little bow hat. It turned out a little different than the idea that I originally had pictured in my head but I think it actually turned out to be my favorite. A simple, sweet little hat for my sweet little girl. It was a really quick easy hat to make, I will try to share how I made it soon, the pattern for the size I made as well as how you can use a basic double crochet hat pattern to make it in any size. 

All of the kids seemed happy with their hats and I enjoyed coming up with all of the different designs. I love seeing my kids using something that I made. They came in handy Monday night when we all bundled up and headed to downtown Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square. It was cold and crowded but the kids all had new hats to keep their heads warm and the fact that two of them were bright yellow made it easy to keep track of them with so many people around. 

Not a great picture but the best I had of all 5 kids

If you want to read more about our family and most recently our trip to see the lights, check out my husbands blog Adventures of a Geeky Dad. He writes a little more about the kids and our family than I do on this blog.