My Hats off to You...

Thanks a ton to all of you who have left comments and sent very supportive email. I truly appreciate all of you, and value your kind and supportive communication. Things have been ridiculously rough this past week. The boy still has quite a lot of his belongings in the house, and it is really tough to go to sleep every night with his clothes in my closet, but him not in my bed. (he is still working out how to get half of a house into one small apartment)
I think I am going to drop one of my classes. I am SOOO overwhelmed and horribly distracted, and I really want to keep my 4.0 gpa. There are just not enough hours in the day to work two jobs, go to school, do mountains of homework, and mourn the death of a monumental relationship. UGH.


Kate models my soon to be felted wonder! Isn't she glamorous? As you can see I have been super into felting hats. Now you all know that I have felted tons of purses, half a ton of slippers, and one or two cell phone cozies. BUT the orange hat that is on Kate's hand is the very first hat that I've felted. The pattern is "Belle" from pick up sticks. The yellow and grey hat a few shots down is representative of the pattern as it's written and shaped, a cloche style. Very cute. The orange hat is still same pattern but shaped more like a bucket style. I actually wear it flipped up on one side, kinda fedora-ish.

The frank-molly-bobby hat.... WAIT, what in the heck is she talking about... Soooooo, these are all malabrigo, which is hands down my all time fave wool. Frank ochre is my absolute fave color, i have around 8 skeins, just always on hand, ready to go. The Molly (pink) is so sweet, and I had a skein that I made a kitty hat for someone with. Now as the Molly lay snuggled along Frank, awaiting her hat destiny, I thought, DAMN, those two make a gorgeous couple. While making the Molly hat, I threw in some spruce blue lamb's pride. THEN I thought OH WOW, all three together, what a threesome they would make! But then I remembered another member of the malabrigo family... Bobby Blue, a color that we had in the shop long ago, it would be months, many months before we had him again. So I sat and waited.... and waited... and waited. The yarn comes from Uruguay and is dyed when you place your order... and I waited. This whole idea was developed over Xmas 05. I didn't even know what I wanted to make with the trio, I just knew that they had to be together.

It was about six months later before we got another shipment in from Malabrigo. But there was Bobby! I brought him home and placed him alongside his soul mates. I was totally correct! They made a harmonious set! But now the question came.... what do I do with them. Another month or so rolled by.... Then I discovered the "Belle" pattern. I decided to make a couple of tester models first( Mr orange, and Ms. yellow). Things developed, I started playing with pattern tweaks/mods, shaping etc. And this gorgeous little hat came to life. People stop me and try to buy it off of my head all the time, actually any of the three hats. I am working on developing my own unique pattern, very similar to the style of frank-molly-bobby. Once I get my own pattern down, I think that I will try and set up and etsy shop to sell em. Maybe even try to get them into some boutique shops around town. Am I crazy?

This was the first time I have felted malabrigo. I always felt guilty felting such a dreamy soft yarn. It felts up GORGEOUS, and retains it dreamy softness. I mean seriously! It is so ridiculously soft, just as soft as is in it's unfelted, natural state. Oh Malabrigo, how I love you! xoxox Note: the orange and yellow hats are made from Wool of the Andes, less soft. Much less soft.

The class: Design Process (for interior design)
The assignment: Water as a concept; choose one element of water & demonstrate that element without showing ANY images of water.
Can anyone guess which element I chose? There is one very specific word that I am looking for. No one but the instructor got it, most of my classmates had never even heard of the word.... though keep in mind that most of my classmates are fresh outta high school.