Independence Day

Happy Fourth of July!  Did you see the July treasury I put together?  If not, you'll want to check it out here. 

Or you can check out this fantastic blog right here where my treasury list and one of my items were featured today!  Sweet!  By the way, I LOVE the "Treasury Tuesday" idea...maybe I'll do that myself sometime too!

Today, I listed a couple of long-tailed patriotic newborn hats (photo props) that I had been fighting with working on for quite some time.  They knitted up just fine.  So what took me so long?  Well, the plan was to go back and stitch stars onto the blue to give them the U.S. flag look.  I thought it would be a ton easier to do than it actually was.  After many failed attempts (on a swatch of the blue yarn that I had knitted for testing my embroidery ideas), I finally had the solution.

Waste fabric.
 
I knew there was a reason I bought that waste canvas stuff ages ago. It was just sitting there, patiently waiting for the day when I realized what I needed it for. I'd never used waste fabric before, but I have done a bit of cross-stitch in the past.  The instructions on using the waste cloth were clear and so I tested it out on my knitted swatch to see how it would look.  Both my husband and eldest son agreed with me that it looked good, and so my cross-stitched stars came to be.  Although my initial design had multiple stars stitched on the blue background, I decided to just stitch one star on each hat since the cross-stitching technique is rather time-consuming and I really wanted to get these hats finished before the Fourth of July.  I'm pleased with the results and like the "lone star" look.

my cross-stitched star!

These hats will make a special addition to any photographer's newborn prop bag--especially considering that besides the Fourth of July holiday season, there are a lot of wonderful military families who would truly appreciate having a patriotic hat used for their newborn's first photos.

patriotic hat #1

patriotic hat #2

These two hats are basically the same, but I noticed they do have a few minor variances.  They're a couple inches different in overall length and the blue portions are just a row or two different in height as well.  I've listed them as the individuals that they are.

More hats are in the works!  I have two new long-tailed elf hats in bright summer colors--that are going to be listed either tomorrow or the next day!  And here are a couple sneak peeks of a newsboy set--I have plans to make more of these soon!