Sock Monkey!

 I have been getting quite a few emails through my Etsy site about doing custom listings, so in between creating customer-specific hats (Yankees, Sabres, blue and gray, etc.) I have been trying to "diversify" my hat collection.  I like to make hats that I would like (I think this is only natural) but I realize that not everyone out there thinks that what I think is cute is actually cute.  (convoluted sentence, but I hope you get my main message)  So I did a search of "baby knit hats" and noticed some common themes--blue and brown together, stripes, bear hats with ears, and believe it or not, sock monkey!  I decided that sock monkey didn't look too difficult and gave it a whirl.  I did my basic ear flap hat in a beautiful yarn called "Barley" which is a mixture of browns, tans, and a little black.  I used ivory for the top and mouth, and I pulled out my basic red for the details.  I did braids in the three main colors.  I found some black buttons at Hobby Lobby on clearance (score!) and added those right before my photo shoot with Jay Bird.
And Jason was great!  He's really getting to be expressive in my hat photo shoots.  It's hard to put him in every listing I add to my site, but his head is getting bigger by the day, and bigger hats take longer to make!