Filling Hat Orders and New House Progress

Hello Friends,
With the semester coming to an end, I decided to post my Etsy site on my facebook page to have some extra activities before Christmas. After a few short days, I already have 7 hats to make! Some owls, some bears, and some pom poms hats.

So far, I have three of the hats complete and ready to order. I am just waiting for my custom sticker labels to arrive, which should be today.

The two owls hat

 I will hook away again tonight to get at least one more done. The pom pom hats are fun to make and do not require a lot of sewing (the like the eyes for owls),  so maybe I will get those two done tonight.

So last post I told you about our new house we are building but did not show you any photos. The builder is making great progress and the house is scheduled to be done at the end of January.

Front of House

Back of House

We were there yesterday picking up nails and checking out the progress. In the state of Florida we have specific regulations for building houses to meet Hurricane Standards, so the whole first floor is a concrete structure and then the second floor is wood. It looks like the electrical wiring is just about done and we go tomorrow for a walk through of the bones of the house. 

Well, I need to get back to grading. Luckily I should be able to get my grading done and some holiday baking in later this week. I am dying to use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for my holiday cookie dough.

xoxo Susan

Some Professional Photos of My Owl Hats

Hello Friends,

Thanks for stopping by! I've been trying to work on some WIPs so I can bring them up north for Thanksgiving next week. In the mean time, I have been making some more baby/kid hats because I have some orders to fill and bring to Buffalo as well. My friend Anna had a beautiful baby boy, so I will be bringing a green or blue owl hat for him too! No baby that I know will be un-covered :)

I have a family friend who is a professional photographer and was kind enough to use some of my hats in her photographs. Her name is Jill and she owns Jillian Marie Imagery, you can check out her website here: www.jillianmarieimagery.com
She just sent me a fresh batch of photos with some of my hats in them and I thought I would share them with all of you.

I took a break from making hats for a few weeks but now I am ready to go back at it, which is a good thing since the temperatures are sure to drop! I hope you had a great start to your week today.
xoxo Susan

More Baby Owl Hats, Bee Hat, Frog Hat Finish and Flowers

Good Morning Friends,

Thanks for stopping by. I have been away for a few days because I shuffled off to Buffalo for my brother's wedding. Summer is in full force in Buffalo, NY and the flowers, green grass and wonderful Buffalo lovelies are all waiting for me to snap photos and share with you. Before I get into some flowers, I finished another blue baby owl hat and made the final touches on the frog hat.

Blue Sleeping Owl Hat

Baby Frog Hat

Crochet Owl Hats

Baby Frog and Baby Bee Hat

The whole crew in the garden

I know, you may be getting sick of seeing my baby hats by now. But I just can't get enough of them. I made another one last night, but I let my mom take it to work this morning before I was able to snap a photo of it.

As soon as my dad drove into the driveway of the house, I saw this beautiful purple flower "ball" in there next door neighbor's garden.

Early sprouts of another purple flower

 Right outside my parents' front window I saw a bee around the hanging flowers.

Stepping stone

 Some other pretty flowers around the street.

Hanging Flowers

One of the things I love the most about visiting Buffalo in the summer is the hanging flower. We have hanging flowers in Florida but they just don't get as full and lush like the ones do here - I suspect this is because the sun is so strong the plants are not able to get as much water as they need (unless you water them all day long). I have many great photos to share this week, I hope you enjoy your tour of Buffalo, NY. It does not really snow there all the time!

xoxo Susan

Baby Crochet Hats: Bee, Owl, Frog!

Hello Friends,

Thank you for stopping by. The last few weeks I have been having problems posting comments to some of your blogs. So if you do not hear from me on your blog, I do visit and try to comment but Google keeps asking me to log in over and over again and does not post my comments. Some blogspot blogs it recognizes me and other ones do not and continually asks me to log in.

I've been busy making more baby animal/critter hats. They are just so cute. My nickname is Sue Bee, so I am always drawn to bumble bees - so naturally I made a bee hat.

After I finished the bee, I thought a nice little frog would be cute.

I am thinking a lady bug will be the the next one. I have to finish my blue owl too.

Before the frog was finished



Frog, Bee, and Owl Baby Hats

  After I posed my first pink owl on my facebook page, I had several people making requests asking to purchase one. I may have to make a round of these for all of my friends and family who want them. J is very impressed with my hat making skills. At first he would give the normal "that looks nice" as I was making the pink hat, but when he came home from work and saw the finished product, he was extremely impressed.

Well, that is what I have been up to - in addition to teaching one summer class. I am trying to enjoy some time off but I just keep feeling like I am a kid pretending to be sick from school if I go more than 4 hours without doing work.
Have a fabulous day!
xoxo Susan

Pink Owl Hat Complete

Hello Lovelies,

I finished the pink owl hat! I am very happy with the first "prototype" of this hat. I think it is so adorable I can't wait to see if on a little kid. We are finally getting some rain, although not enough to help the plants, but just enough to keep the neighborhood kids inside. This means I wasn't able to snap a photo of this hat on any kiddos.

Front of the Owl Hat

Back of the hat

I was trying to simulate a little head

Over a little garden angel

As usual, I used Vanna's Choice (Lion's Brand) yarn. The pink, yellow, and green are from Vanna Baby, and the white, black, and orange are the regular Vanna's choice. I want to try a few more animal hats but I think I am going to make a blue owl (so I have a girl and a boy one) for a boy.

I wish you a great start you another week :)

xoxo Susan

Cutest Baby Hats Ever?

Good Afternoon Friends, 

Do you remember when I first started my blog back in January and I made my little new born hats and a special one specifically for baby McKenna? Well McKenna's mommy told me she will be getting her 4 month old photos taken very soon and it got me thinking about her need for a cute hat for her photoshoot. I set out in making the cutest hat for McKenna to wear in her photos. So I searched around and saw plenty of cute caps for kids.

Some were monkeys like this one, others were flowery, which as you know I am always a fan of flowers. But, I really loved the owl hats the best. Since I am not very good at following patterns, I decided to give it a shot and try to create my own owl hat for McKenna.

The hat is not complete yet, I still have to add little ears, connect the eyes and beak and add strings to the ear flaps. What do you think? I was going to wait until after I finished it to share but I was afraid the day would end before I got to it later. I have some little kids on my street who I hope to try it on and take some photos. I was able to pop it on a couple heads yesterday before to make sure the size was sufficient and check for ear flap placement.

I hope you are having a fabulous weekend,
xoxo Susan

Hat Happiness

My very first posting was a baby hat which was made for the Caps for Good program. The university I work at, FGCU, has a strong commitment to service learning and our students complete service learning projects each year. We have a student who is working on a project to make hats/caps for new babies in need, so the majority of the hats I have posted will contribute to her project. Several of my co-workers have been knitting and crocheting the last two weeks to help make baby hats. We have some cupcakes, some flowers, and some pom poms! My friend Carolynne made the four hats in the top right photo, and the two hats on the bottom right photo are my attempts to make the green sparkly one she made (the pattern is free and can be found here). My colleague Gil made the other cupcake hat and is working on a little pumpkin hat right now. Her cupcake hat inspired me to make the pink and blue one! We've been having a great time talking about crochet every chance we get the chance (during break time of course).

I have been enjoying the photos many other crochet like Lucy and Jacquie are posting of their bulbs in bloom. Since we cannot plant bulbs in the ground here (doesn't get cold enough for them to freeze), I enjoy the store bought potted bulbs too. When I first purchased this one there were two flowers starting to show. By the next morning there were three as seen below and then the second photo was the third day! Each day more flowers appear. I love tulips but I can't wait to see some daffodils.

Well, the sun is shining and I must do some work on this chilly Saturday morning. Luckily I have my tulips to stare at in between breaks, and I will sneak in time to finish the charity baby hat to add to the finished pile. Hopefully my afternoon will be filled with some tennis and some Japanese crochet flowers attempts. Check back tomorrow to see how they turned out!

XOXO Susan 

Hearts

Well... my desk arrived! The desk was the easiest piece to put together out of all the different furniture we have purchased from the Canopy line. The desks and file cabinet are at home in our upstairs loft. Notice my lovely pink chair - this is my second pink chair, the first one cracked at the bottom and my husband found a replacement for me after the chairs were no longer sold in stores when we first started dating. Unfortunately this chair just started to crack at the bottom too. I suspect before long, I will fall out of it when the crack increases and a pieces breaks off completely. I applied some glue to the cracking area last night in hopes to make it last a little longer (J doesn't want to see it go, haha).

 I've been hearing many complaints of cold temperatures in the north, so here are some yellow hibiscus photos to warm you up. My pink ones tend to produce more flowers, but I noticed the yellow one had some blooms yesterday.

I've been crocheting a little bit too, but unfortunately this week didn't allow for as much crocheting as I would have liked, TGIF (for those of you who may not be familiar with TGIF it means Thanks Godness It's Friday!). Here are my two latest baby caps for the Caps for Good Charity. We are coming close to the end of the event. I tried a different type of flower on these ones to add a little variety.

I am looking forward to spending some time with my yarn this evening and Saturday and Sunday. I have some plans to try out some new patterns (flowers) that I am sure you will LOVE so be sure to come back and visit. :)
Happy Friday, XOXO
Susan

Another WIP

Hello! I've been grading all morning today. I designated Mondays as my day for grading last week's assigments/work my students submit on Sunday evenings. Today I moved out of my office and onto the lanai so I can enjoy the fresh air while I work away at my laptop (instead of being cooped up indoors like I often am).
Similar to the way I go about most things in my life, I have multiple works in progress for my crocheting. This is definitely evident by the various pictures I posted of different pieces I am working on over the last few weeks. Last week I shared some circle grannys, which are now slowly turning into true granny sqaures as I make the last round and connect them together. My inspiration for this one came from Lucy in Attic24 (http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/hexagon-howto.html) as well as this one which I believe her name is Meg (http://solgrim.blogspot.com/2009/06/sirkel-i-kvadrat.html) is mostly in non-English but the pattern is provided in English. I decided to make the final round squares for this blanket, but after I finish this one, I am going to make something with hexagons.



First round 4 added





As round for for circle #2 was made, I connected if with the first one



The connect as you go is G R E A T!



This is my M.C. Esher Metamorphosis exibit - I may be on to something here!!

I didn't really mean to do it, but my last photo reminds me of an M. C. Esher drawing - a metamorphosis photo - and I think it is really neat! Since I didn't really plan to make it look like that, I certainly could improve for future photos if I want to go down that route. Maybe tomorrow I can orchestrate a true metamorphosis shot... hold your excitment for tomorrow to see what I can come up with. My brother Kevin is an art teacher and I am sure once he stops in for a visit on my blog this week, he will have some helpful advice.

Oh and I made another cap during the garage sale Saturday morning. I love the look of the hat with a flower attached so of course I added one on. Here it is for you to enjoy:

Have a great start to your week. XOXO

Where did the sun go?

Well the morning is starting out foggy and cloudy here, but considering my busy schedule today, I do not mind one bit! I have several meetings, some data coding, dinner with our neighbors who are in town from Montreal, and then another Live Chat with my students (students from a different course tonight). Today may be a day where I don't have time to crochet until late tonight.

Happy Birthday to my brother Kevin!! He will be snow shoeing in the county forest in western NY to celebrate being 30. Here are two cupcakes for you.

Two cupcake hats for the Babies in Africa

Since I usually try to include some nature everyday for those of you who have no green to see here it is - We planted a tangerine tree last year and after two winters with temperatures below freezing, we've lost a lot of leaves. After comparing the tree to a photo I took from last year, the tree looks considerably better. For some reason the leaves on top fell off again this year. Does anyone know why this would have happened? We were thinking maybe it is normal.



I am really looking forward to showing you my progress on two other projects: one is the ripple blanket you know about but the other one I have not said what it will be!! Stay tuned for more information tomorrow.

Only one more day until the weekend!!!! Have a fabulous day XOXO