First Appliqué...

I recently received a commission for 2 hats.  A fade from light to dark with a small heart and a fade from gray to blue with a moose.  The first one was simple!  Turned out great and the client loves it!  The second one presented several challenges.

 First I was going to blend the gray and blue then fade to brown with a moose pattern I designed built into the stitches.  But the blue/gray combo didn't pop like I'd hoped for.  So I pulled out all the rows and started again.  This time with just gray at the top and fade to blue with the brown as the moose pattern stitches.  But, in the way of round worked crochet, all the stitches were slanting and didn't line up!  So I pulled it out again! and started fresh.  Gray at the top, fade to blue, and finish with ear flaps.  Then I tried to cross stitch the moose pattern into the hat.  Epic fail!  Pulling the cross stitch out, I decided to make an appliqué of sorts.  I crocheted several small pieces and sewed them together to create a moose!  Then sewed the moose onto the hat.  The end result is pretty good.  And the client loves it too!

While these hats were fun to make they were a little stressful because I had to on the fly make up some patterns for the moose I was going to originally use and the moose appliqué too.  But I needed the stress, because the best things are created when you are working on the fly :)