A labor of love

For years I have said that knitting and crocheting are skills that were completely unattainable for me. It all seemed so complicated and time consuming (two qualities that I do NOT look for in a project), but I could not help drooling over all of the super cute crocheted baby accessories that I came across perusing Etsy. I am self proclaimed baby hat fanatic. Add ear flaps and/or a pompom and I am hooked. A few months ago, a friend, who was relocating to the Bahamas (lucky!), was cleaning out her stash of hand dyed alpaca yarn. I left her house with 6 or 7 skeins and absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it. On that day I decided that I would learn to crochet if it killed me. To be honest, I stored the yarn away and didn't think about it again for months. A few weeks ago I came across the yarn and Jena's plastic crochet needle from her potholder kit. That discovery sparked my newly reawakened desire to crochet. After much stress, many cramped hands and many, many youtube how to videos, I successfully completed my very first hat for Bijou. It took me a total of 3 full days. 3 DAYS!!! Now, a secondhand felted Goodwill sweater can be reconstructed into a very cute hat (and matching boots) in about an hour, so three days was a bit much for me. I declared Bijou's white and blue hat my first and last hat attempt.
(She was not happy about being photographed on this day for some reason, hence the extra attitude in the face.)
But being the determined (and sometimes insane) mama that I am, I decided to keep trucking and give it another try. Today, I am proud to say that I can officially crochet very cute little hats for my babies (complete with ear flaps AND pompoms) and it only takes me a day. Two if the children are being uncooperative. I've shaved off 2/3 of my crochet time. Not bad if I do say so myself...

So far, all of the girls have hats and I'm still making more. If nothing else, they will have warm heads for the rest of their days. But don't worry unwanted, secondhand, felted wool Goodwill sweaters, I am still making hats and boots with you too!