I guess bucket hats have made a come back! I remember wearing them while growing up in the 90s. So when I was deciding what to make for this month's Summer Craft Blog Hop, my mind immediately went to bucket hats! At first, I thought about crocheting a granny square bucket hat, but then I decided to give my hands a rest and sew some instead. I have a bunch of fabric from when I was making masks, so I decided to use some of those fun fabrics to make bucket hats for my kiddos.

This winter has been really cold here in Washington state, and while I have a warm puffer coat, it didn't have a hood. My ears were cold! So I decided to crochet a couple ear warmers while I searched for another warm coat with a hood. I did find one, but I still enjoy wearing my ear warmers. There are so many free patterns for crochet headbands and ear warmers on Pinterest, and the one I decided to make is the Bobble Twist Headband by A Crafty Concept. I love the texture created by the bobbles, and since I tend to wear a lot of black, I decided to make my ear warmers colorful! 

As usual, my goal for this year is to use up as much of my yarn as possible. I can slowly see some yarn disappearing from my stash, but I still keep accidentally buying new yarn! But at least when I buy yarn now, I buy it for a specific project. I no longer allow myself to buy yarn just because it's pretty or on sale. Since I'm trying to use up my yarn stash, I really enjoy participating in the Craft Room De-Stash Challenge. For the de-stash challenge, my blog friends and I created new projects from supplies already in our craft supply stash. This time I've decided to make beanies using my new Sentro knitting machine. I've been crocheting for almost 20 years, and I know how to knit...a little. So when I learned about the knitting machine, I thought it would be a cool way to hurry up the process of using up my yarn, and using the machine would be easier on my hands. Anyhoo, I made 15 hats! Scroll down to check them out!

Yesterday, I shipped off some handmade hats for the anti-bullying campaign, Hat Not Hate. Hat Not Hate asks crocheters and knitters to donate handmade blue hats to be distributed to schools. The blue hats are Hat Not Hate's symbol for eradicating bullying. As a mom of two and a former educator, I am all for eradicating bullying, so I searched my yarn stash for blue yarn and got to work. 

Christmas is just around the corner, so to get into the Christmas spirit, I decided to crochet a Christmas Tree Hat. I just love this fun and festive hat! The pattern (by HelloHappy) worked up pretty fast, and I even got to add sparkly mini pom poms and a little bell!

Last month, my daughter told me she wanted to dress up as Bark Knight for the Book Character Parade at her school. Each quarter the students have an Accelerated Reader goal, and if they meet that goal, they get to dress up as their favorite book character and participate in a parade around the school. So my daughter reached her Accelerated Reader goal, and she asked to dress up as Bark Knight from the Dog Man books. I thought it would be a cool idea to crochet a hat as part of the costume, so I searched through my stash of yarn to find the perfect yarns create the hat. [I made this hat without using a pattern, and I did not create a pattern, so there is no pattern available. Also, I only made this hat for my daughter. I'm not making more to sell.]

Happy Easter! I recently crocheted this Top This! Bunny Hat for my daughter, and she loves it! It's still a little chilly here, so the weather is still cool enough for hats and scarves.  This hat was really fun and quick to crochet. The Top This! hats come with both knit and crochet patterns. I really love this yarn. It's so soft, and I love the different textures and color changes. So fun!

Living in Washington has turned me into a Seahawks fan, and I like to show my 12th Man(Woman) Pride by crocheting projects in Seahawks colors. One of my favorite things to create are hooded scarves a.k.a. scoodies. So I've made a few scoodies in Seahawks colors. The one pictured above is my favorite, and I was a little sad when it sold at a craft fair in the fall. I can always make another for myself... I will eventually... soon!