Kids Clothes Week: Hats

Oooh I can barely contain my excitement about this whole challenge. I mean if this went on ALL the time, you know the having to be accountable and such, I would never have to buy anything at a store ever ( I kid, sort of.)

I work well with deadlines and other peoples expectations and this is why I did alright in college. Yes it's true that I almost always did everything (maybe even a 12 page paper) the night before it was due. Scrambling to put the finishing touches on projects at 2, 3 or ever 4AM and then managing to somehow function, look good and be running on time (this was back before I drank coffee too.)

So here I am with a literal mountain of fabric and project ideas, not to mention blog posts to write. As I was cooking dinner and occasionally checking on the littles I wondered "How am I supposed to do this and still manage to wash clothes, cook, clean and pay attention to my kids?"

The answer is still unclear but I am typing this in a clean living room having already washed my fabric, put away dinner and I even have a project to show off.  *I typed this last night as I was waiting for my fabric to dry

Ready set GO!!!

To be fair I did not just whip these up today. I finished them today. I'm taking this week to help me get back on track with my time spent here on the the blog, finishing old projects and starting projects that have, until now, lived only in my head.

Project Low Down

Pattern: my own made up simple hat. CO 133, knit a 1x1 rib  for about 7 or 8 rows until it looked how I wanted, added a couple random stripes  to give each hat a way for me to tell who's who's. Even decreases starting after the hat measured about 5 inches.

Needles: Size 2 for ribbing, 3 for hat

Yarn: Koigu that the boys picked out themselves.

I Heart Michigan

I can't think of a better way to kick of the Kids Clothes Week Challenge! Here We Go!

I have crush on my home state of the mitten. The lovely summer we had enjoying all it's water ways and sandy beaches only fueled the fire.

Wanting to share the love with my littles I searched out a simple shirt with a pic of the great lakes or just the outline of the state. Would you believe that this was hard to find? I didn't think it would be but for some reason all of the kids shirts had silly sayings or some wording like "Made in Michigan",  personally don't get the appeal.

While being lulled to sleep by the waves of Lake Michigan I had an idea, combine my many loves to make a great shirt! My kids, Michigan and Alabama Chanin style sewing.

I started with some plain shirts from Target, scraps from another project I'm working on, two pairs of tiny hands and lots of love. CHEESE!

Do you see that black spot??? Can you believe I sent him to school in this before taking any pictures? It was the only day he came home with not just paint but BLACK paint on his clothes. AHHHH! (don't worry it mostly came out)

Not sure if you have ever traced your littles' hands but, it is really hard. It's one thing to do it for a fun picture but it's a whole other ballgame when your trying to make a template for an applique. I needed their tiny fingers to be just so. Thankfully they were into the whole process and we managed to do it in about three tries.

Oh my gosh! I just just now realized that if youj are not a native Michigander or know someone who is you may have no idea that we here in the Great Lakes State often use our hand to show our location or what have you.

I ironed these, I swear!

After using a basic straight stitch for the applique I backed stitched on a little love for our town: Ann Arbor. Now don't go looking to compare the location to it's map counterpart, it's a heart in the general abstract vicinity of A2.

I kinda wanna make one for myself. Will. Have. To. Wait. Focus on the kids...