Olivia FINALLY finished her sibling gifts this evening! Phew! I wondered there for a bit if she would finish. When you're nine, it's a fine line mom walks telling you to do something and/or giving you space to get things accomplished yourself. Needless to say I had to REMIND her often the last two days to get them done! :)

Olivia had decided to make recycled sweater wool hats for the boys for her gift. She doesn't usually wear hats due to her hair, so I'm making her a wool sweater headband (we'll see if it turns out ok, I'm about half finished since it wasn't going to be for Christmas and I've had a few things going on!) We found sweaters at thrift stores, paying around $1-$2 a piece. For the boys' hats we used pieces of three sweaters, and had one other we used for Olivia's as well as a hat for our new little one. The sweaters were washed in warm and dried, a couple of times each to get a good "felt" feel.

We took a measurement of the boys' heads and used that as our guide for the bottom width. Using a hat we found at a thrift store, which was the "style" Olivia chose, she drew with a chalk marker, the outline of the hat with the brim width needed. We used the bottom hem of the sweater as the brim of the hat, eliminating the need for additional sewing.

She then cut out each piece, one on the front of the sweater and one on the back.

Following this, I took the two pieces of each hat, laid them front to front, and hand stitched them.

Olivia liked the idea of needle felting a design on the front of each and I cut out a freeform guitar for each. (Looking at the finished product, I like them but wish they had been much bigger to be really central.) Placing a needle mat under the top layer of the hat, and laying the guitar on top, Olivia went over and over the shape with the needle felting tool.

After it was well adhered, she then took embroidery floss in a bright, contrasting color (the boys' favorites) and hand stitched around the outside of the guitar.

Braeden's stitching is red, and Liam's is orange... they're favorites!

I think they turned out GREAT and can't wait to see them on the boys' heads!!!

Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas tomorrow morning!