4th of July Hats

Wanting something festive and patriotic for the 4th of July, so I decided to try out this hat pattern by Mary Jane Mucklestone. Since it was a trial, I used mini-skeins of a fingering yarn - Sprout Seedlings by The Fiber Seed, and knit the pattern as written.

I misread the pattern and thought there were 4 rounds per stripe which looked skimpy, so I did 6 rounds. This resulted in a rather slouchy little hat.

There was enough yarn left to make another hat, so I did, this time *really* following the directions. The second hat is adorable! Well, they both are...

In conclusion, I think that you could knit an adult-size hat using three of the mini-skeins either by adjusting the pattern or doubling the strands of yarn.

Mannequin Head Update

So I've started the painting! It turned out that "Parchment" was the skin tone I was looking for - not too pink, not too muddy, pretty pale and neutral. I went with black hair because it's more dramatic and traditionally 1920s. I'm afraid the eyes are still too large, but maybe I can minimize them a bit. So here's the latest:

I will eventually outline her lips and eyes, as well as adding eyelashes and some details.

Mannequin Head - continued

Well, the gesso didn't cover the newspaper as well as I wanted, and it has a very matte finish:

One coat of gesso

So I took a break to think about what to do...I picked out some paint colors and tried them out over the first coat of gesso. Then I put another coat of gesso over the paint. I really wasn't happy with the way the gesso looked, so I decided to try using plain drawing paper over the newspaper and gesso. Because the newspaper had wrinkled and hadn't been very smooth, I decided to dampen the drawing paper so it would cover the features more evenly.

My painting test shows through

The wet paper went over the form very well, and didn't need any glue or Mod Podge to stick. I wanted to put a coat of Mod Podge over the paper, but needed to wait until the paper dried. After it dried, some of the paper peeled up a bit, so the Mod Podge was necessary as well as decorative. Now I'll start the painting process and finish with another coat of Mod Podge to seal it.