Today was much better except for being low on sleep. I had some bloody murder dreams that had me tossing and turning. You know, very, very, very violent ones that involved people getting chopped into teeny itty bitty pieces. And then I had to wake up early for a routine doctor’s appointment. Neither of those are conducive for a good night’s sleep.

So it wasn’t any surprise that when I got home I didn’t want to do anything. I was telling Bethany that I could barely get up the energy to grab a bowl of cereal! I sat with Isabelle watching tv until we saw a little crafty project, Ni Hao, Kai-lan no-sew winter hats.

Oooh fun! Isabelle wanted one. She was jumping up and down asking for the Hoho hat. That got me going. I was practically jumping up and down myself. We went and looked up the directions, printed out the template, and went digging around my fabric stash.

Isabelle chose some green fabric, I measured her head twice, you know measure twice cut once. Then I cut the fabric and reread the directions. Then I read the directions again and started to laugh. It said, “height of the hat should be about 32 inches“. Ha ha ha! 32 inches!! Let’s see what that looks like.

Yeah, so if you’re going to make a Ni Hao Kai-lan winter hat DO NOT follow those directions to the letter unless you like 32 inch tall hats. I cut off the excess and have a whole hat left over.

The rest of the hat making went smoothly, sort of. Ok not really. I don’t have any puffy paint and I couldn’t find any pink felt or fabric glue. The biggest thing was the fabric glue. So I thought I’d sew the hat instead. That worked except for the very visible seam in the inside. It will show up very clearly when roll the brim up. But I kept moving forward.

I had all the pieces cut out and Isabelle helped me position everything so we could have an idea of how the hat would look.

Well she tried. I had to reposition everything or it would have looked like blobs of nothing.

I was about to hand sew everything down when Alan woke up, came out, and asked a very smart question. Why didn’t I sew everything down on the machine before I sewed the hat up? I just gave him a blank look. I think the lack of sleep was effecting me. I had no idea what he was talking about. It took me a few seconds and then I thought, what a good idea. Too bad I had already sewed up 32 inches of hat. I wasn’t going to pick it now.

Instead I was determined to find some glue. I dug through my supplies and found a fabric spray adhesive so I used that. I used a permanent fabric marker for the eyes and eyebrows and used chalk instead of pink felt for Hoho’s blushing cheeks.

I think he looks pretty good.

If I were to make it again, and I totally could with all I have left, I’d make Hoho smaller.

He wraps around Isabelle’s head so much you can’t see all of him. And I’d also use fabric glue and not a spray adhesive because he’s already coming off. I may end up having to sew him down after all.

My Hoho Monkey on Flickr