Puppy Ear Flap Hat - Crochet

Just a quick post. I wanted to show you my newest ear flap hat.  A puppy!  How cute is this face and floppy ears?

A sweet little puppy ear flap hat

It's seems that many of my friends are having babies this season.  Most have been girls, so I've done quite a few baby birds and giraffes, but I was invited to a baby shower for a baby boy and besides foxes, I soon realized I didn't have many boy ear flap hats in my arsenal.  I went in search of inspiration and found it in this picture by Ruth McColm (you can buy her full pattern over on etsy):

As always I used my own favorite ear flap hat pattern (link no longer available) but you can find a number of ear flap hat patterns for free on Pinterest.  For some parts such as the ears, I pieced together things I liked from different patterns to get the look I wanted.  I used the pattern for the ears from this pattern and I modified it a bit by reducing stitches near the top to narrow the ears so they would be wide and floppy at the bottom and smaller, easier to attach at the top

Puppy ear flap hat - how can you not love this face?

Here's all the parts before assembling. Ear flap hat, circle "patch" for the eye, two ears, a small nose, two buttons for the eyes and matching thread. 

After you have all the parts ready, I laid them out on the hat to find the best spacing for the puppy face.

It's always good to lay things out how they will look before hand so you can get the face placement correct

Then I attached each part with embroidery thread.  I like to sew these so that nothing shows on the inside of the hat.  I take shallow stitches that do not go all the way to the back and at the same time securing each part very snugly.  Especially the buttons, as you would not want those to come off for safety reasons.

After that my little puppy hat was completed, and I was almost sad to give him away the next day, as I usually like to keep one as a template for future hats.

  
Just so I could see how it would fit on a regular head, I had my 9-year-old try the hat on for size.  This was made at a 9-12 month size (the baby is born this spring and it will be ready to wear next winter), but since yarn is somewhat stretchy, it did fit on her head and would probably go up to a 2 or 3 year old toddler if the mom wanted it to.

By the way, the baby shower was fabulous, in case you want a sneak peek.  They did a very Pacific Northwest outdoors theme, with grey and white chevrons, with hints of black and woodsy elements.  Here were the center pieces, little tents on a slab of wood and mason jars filled with pens (for the games) and chocolate dipped pretzels.

Cute and woodsy

This play tent was set up over by the gift table, and will make a lovely play area for baby Duke as he grows up.

For favors, they had a "make your own trail mix" bar with little baggies and tin buckets with the different snacks of nuts, chocolate chips, and cranberries

The food was fabulous as well. My eldest daughter really loved this fruit ups served in waffle cups.

Love the waffle bowls use for serving the fruit cups

Last but not least were the woodland creatures for dessert.  These were little foxes and maybe skunks or badgers all displayed on a big slab of tree trunk.  So cute. 

Had I know this was the theme, I probably would have made my little fox ear flap hat instead, 

Little Jaxon here in one of my fox hat creations

 but I really like the way the puppy hat turned out. After Duke is born and grows up enough to wear the hat, I will post an update.

Pink Giraffe Earflap Hat

Baby girl things are cute.  Baby girl things inspire me.  Sometimes I am sad I only learned to crochet two years ago, because I could of decked out all three of my girls in the cutest handmade stuff!  Something like this:

My latest crochet creation - the snuggly, warm, baby pink giraffe earflap hat

Isn't that the sweetest thing?  I just made this last week.

Come to think of it, the little girls born in the last few years are so lucky too, with the influx of feminine baby things.  I know it was only 8 short years ago, but I was hard pressed to find any pink baby gear back in 2004.  No pink pack-n-plays, no pink car seats, no pink exersausers nada. We ended up getting dark blue and green plaid everything.  Now I look around and there are pink zebra potty chairs and lavender strollers. What?  Why did manufacturers only realize in 2010 that 50% of the population might want butterflies and flowers on their baby things?  Boo.  Hey, speaking of zebras, have you noticed animal prints are a super hot baby trend? Zebra, Giraffes, Monkeys, and Elephants are everywhere!  I went to the store to find a gift for a friend of mine having a baby girl and I fell in love with the cute Giraffe themed baby clothes... 

I was especially inspired by this adorable wrap blanket...

How cute are those little pink giraffes?  So sweet!!

I only had a day before the baby shower but I thought to myself, I want to make one of my earflap hats, but I want to try and make it a baby pink giraffe!

close up of the tiny giraffe face

I used extra soft pink yarn.  The ear flap pattern I got for free online (the website I used is no longer there, I was going to link to it - I may have to revamp my changes and print up my own version of an ear flap hat, if you are interested).  I did not have a pattern for the giraffe features, so I went searching online for images to inspire me.  I had to hunt around for some rounded ears and I made up the horns.  For the braids I used the two main yarn colors (white and pink) plus added a rose colored darker strand for a braid contrast.  I'm not sure how size translates in these pictures, but this is so small, about a 3-6 month baby head.

This turned out so cute, I almost didn't want to give it away

Once finished it matched the other gift items pretty well.

Baby pink giraffes - stinkin' adorable.

The gift went over well at the baby shower!  There were many "ooo's and ahhh's" as she opened her gift.  I can not wait until her little girl gets here (this December) and I can update you with a picture with a cute baby wearing my sweet lil' giraffe hat.  I also can't wait to try some other colors.  A little baby blue one, or a light yellow one with some brown spots for a "real" giraffe look.

Baby Chick Ear Flap Hat

Speaking of baby chicks, I just had to show you one of my latest ear flap hats.  It's so stinkin' adorable I want to run out into a crowd of strangers and find a tiny baby head to put it on so I can see what it looks like with chubby baby cheeks underneath it.  

Once I learned to make ear flap hats six months ago, there was no stopping me.  I made a ton of cute ones in the winter (snowmen, Ruby the red-nosed reindeer, Hello Kitties in many shades, baby bears in pink and blue - then I made some custom ones for some kids I know, including Domo, and even a bacon cheeseburger ear flap hat, which, let me tell you were a big hit from the tweens who received them as gifts), but when spring kicked in high gear around here I knew I wanted to make a little baby chick.  The size here is for a 0-3 month old baby and would make and adorable photo prop as well.

Every day I keep thinking of new animals/ideas to try to make into an ear flap hat. I was thinking of light green frog, a baby blue bird, a blue puppy with floppy ears, maybe a floppy eared rabbit too! So if you think of another clever idea let me know and I'll try to see what I come up with.  I love the challenge.  My sister-in-law even wondered if I could pull off an R2D2 for my nephew.  Now THAT would be a challenge.  If any of you are interested, I can post some of my other ear flap creations in a future post. Thanks so much for letting me share.