Hats, shapes, another crayon roll

I've been pretty caught up in my new cooking blog, so it's been a while since I've made anything non food-related. A couple weeks ago, I went to a knitting night with some mom friends though, and I got back into doing a bit of crochet. Even though I prefer the look of knitting, crochet is what I turn to when I want to make something quickly.

I had been playing around for some time with a pattern for a hat that uses a criss-cross sort of look. It's not quite perfected yet, but I think I'm getting close. The color of the pink cotton yarn I was using reminded me of watermelon, which is E's latest obsession, so I decided to use that as inspiration to make her a watermelon hat. She calls it "water-lemon" which always cracks me up.

I'm not entirely happy with how the brim turned out. I think I increased too much, which is why it looks ruffle-y instead of flat. I also used a different kind of cotton yarn for the brim, which contributed to the floppiness.

I also finally finished up some stuff commissioned by a mom-friend. Another crayon roll, made from more of the dinosaur fabric (I'm so glad I bought extra - I love that fabric!), and some crochet shapes.

She had originally asked me for a sun, moon, and star, but I had a hell of a time with the moon. I usually come up with my own patterns, but I was kind of at a loss for where to start. Even after Googling extensively for patterns, I only found one pattern that was remotely close to what I had in mind and it still needs quite a bit of adjustment. I'm going to make it my vacation project next week.

In the meantime, here are the sun and a star. I think they turned out pretty cute. E loved them too and was sad when I told them they weren't for her, so I'll probably be making her a set now too.

I stuffed these with Eco-craft instead of my usual poly-fil. If you're not familiar, it's this environmentally friendly, man-made corn-based fiber. Interesting stuff. It definitely is not as fluffy as poly-fil, but it is softer to the touch. I feel like the finished products were a little more dense than usual. I have a couple bags that I'm going to try out, but so far, I'm not quite sold. I'm going to wait and see how it performs for stuffing some plush animals before I make a final decision.