Sock Monkey Hat

Mary Ann Hacking's amazing photography skills and her uber-cute baby wearing my sock monkey hat :)

 My latest adventures in crochet creations:

A friend requested a sock monkey hat for a 6-month old boy, and showed me a picture of a hat that looked something like this. Based on the picture, I was able to figure out a pattern that consisted of hdc (half double crochet), sc (single crochet), rsc (reverse single crochet), and changing out hook sizes. I adapted the mouth idea and stitched in a mouth-line-thingy. I love the way it turned out! The colors are pretty much the same as the original picture, but I made up the stitches, stitch count, and assembly of accessories ... does anyone know where you draw the line in the indie-craft world between copying and creating? Is something like this a copyright issue? I sure hope not ... because I'd love to sell these! :) 

(On that note, let me know if you would like to place an order. I'll be selling them for $35 - $40 depending on size.)

 I gave this hat to one of my friends in exchange for her photography of some of my hats (see a future post for those pictures) and needed to make another one for my friend who requested this hat. The next day I sat down to recreate it from memory, but tried to make it slightly larger. Unfortunately, I was too lazy the first time around to write down the pattern as I went, thinking, I suppose, that I would remember what I did.

epic fail.

I worked at it for about an hour and a half, stubbornly in denial that something was fundamentally wrong.You know that slowly sickening feeling that you're making a big mistake but you know very well that you're not going to stop the chain of events that will ultimately lead to the impending disaster? All melodramatics aside, that was pretty much how I felt.

I'm including pictures here to prove to myself (and anyone else who cares) how vital it is to write down a pattern as you create something.

 and yet ... 

This experience, like all mistakes, provided the potential for learning on a deeper level. Spending hours on this "mistake-hat" forced me to analyze and perfect my color-joining technique. I plan to start creating mini-posts on techniques I figure out as I go, in hopes that the details I learn can be of help to other crochet artists. I took pictures of each step of the process as I went so that I can include step-by-step pictures and instructions in a future post regarding how to make perfect joins, as well as how to securely and invisibly tie off all loose ends.

The picture on the left is my original method of joining colors, which created a bump the whole length of the hat and distorted the shape. I tried something different on the next one and it worked beautifully.

I now have the pattern written down in a shorthand format that makes sense to me, but I would like to rewrite it in a user-friendly form, and possibly sell it on etsy. Before I do that though, I want to experiment with colors more so that I can claim this as my own invention in every regard. I'm thinking about a hat pattern that consists of hdc stitches with a red and tan yarn together and multiple sizes, so that somebody could make two as a psuedo-gag gift for a father and son :) I'm doing plenty of mother-daughter sets, and thought it would make for such a cute picture to have a father and son wearing matching sock monkey hats! ... more on that later. 

 This picture is proof of my eventual success in recreating my own pattern. I posted this picture on my facebook page (SandiesSofties) and got 26 likes/comments in one day! :) 

And finally, here is a picture of my lil workstation ... I'm still dreaming of one day having my very own studio with a litany of storage options. :) (see my post titled "Visions of Bookshelves ... ")