Hats for newborn sessions!

One of the promotions our studio offers is free newborn sessions. Yesterday I was thinking on ways to market that aspect, and new ideas for newborn photos. I've had more than a few inquiries from expecting moms, one of whom is due within the next three weeks. So I went cruising over to Etsy, a fabulous place to get über cute handmade items for kids (and just handmade items in general, but the kid stuff seems to be the most impressive). Not only are there some fabulous PHOTOS of newborns, but also really cute hats and whatnot as well.

And I was inspired.

Not to spend money, though. I got looking at quite a few of the photos and thought to myself, "I can do that." So I gave it a shot since I already had materials on hand. Figured if it turned out that I actually could NOT do that, I could always go the 'spending money' route. As it turns out, I think I did okay. Made two very different hats.

The green one shown took a couple of hours, just 'cause it's essentially single crochet (scattered triple-crochet stitches create the bumps). By the way, I used this pattern for the green hat. I'll probably forever associate it with Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, because I was listening to a few Stuff You Missed In History Class podcasts about her while I crocheted.

The ear-flap hat took only about an hour (double crochet goes a LOT faster!), not including the braids and weaving in the ends of yarn pieces. For that one, I started with this basic hat, and elaborated on it... while listening to 'How the Taiping Rebellion Worked.' :) Multitasking.