David's Hat Factory

I spent a few hours last night and early this morning perfecting my new Bombshell Beanie for men.  It is a crocheted beanie made with shell stitches and it is super cool and has tons of design options.  I have one model made but I am not ready to give a visual to the world just yet.  I want to make several of them and get them on the site before I make them available for purchase.

I swear I'm not lazy.  I just got busy.  Ok I knew this was going to happen lol.  My goal was to make 2 squares a day for my colorful squares throw that I started working on.  Well as always life intervenes and I got busy and just didn't have the time to make them.  As of today I am 12 squares behind on my goal... but all is not lost I guess.  I can catch back up tomorrow (maybe) if I make myself sit down and do it.  Of course by tomorrow I will be 14 squares behind and so I'll have two more square to add to what I'm already behind on.  We'll see what happens by the end of tomorrow...

I've got two things to blog about in this post.  1.)  I've made two new squares for my colorful granny square throw that I started yesterday.  And 2.)  Today I finished a custom order and sent it out.  I have pictures of the squares and of the two hats I made for Lee in the UK.







I'm only working with a few limited colors on the squares right now trying to do some stash busting (a term used by knitters and crocheters for using up stashed supplies of yarn).  I'll add some more colors after I make a few more squares.

The hats were fun to make.  These are the first two I have made with this particular stripe pattern.  I love the way they came out.  I can't decide which one I like better.  I'm thinking I might have to make a red/black one for myself someday.

Well I'll be back to post two more squares tomorrow and I am working on one of these for my next order.

I never have time to make anything for myself because I'm always so busy doing things.  Well, I stumbled on something that has inspired me to take time out to make something just for me.  I was looking around on craftster and I found THIS!!


Look at all of those beautiful colors.  Anyone who really knows me knows that I am a color freak and this crocheted granny square throw created by adaiha makes me happy every time I look at it.... that is why I stole the picture to put in this blog post LOL.

Well, this adventure is not going to be an easy one for me because as a guy I am very impatient with projects that seem to take forever to complete.  I have been crocheting since I was around 10 years old and I have never once been able to finish a handmade afghan.  I have started many of them over they years but I would always get bored with them before getting very far.  Well there is a "join as you go" method to putting this throw together that I hope will help me along the way with not getting bored.  I wouldn't be able to do this if I had to sew all those squares together... I would end up pulling my hair out of my head before I finished.

The throw pictured above is a 6X6 square but I think I am going to do a 6X8 to make it into a rectangular throw.  That means I will need 48 squares for my throw and my goal is to make 2 squares a day which means I can have all of the squares I'll need in 24 days with the last 2 completed on Thursday, April 8th, 2010.  Then I can start joining the squares and hopefully have the entire thing done by the end of April.

I will be posting pictures of my squares as I make them each day so you'll have to come back each day to check on my progress.  I am excited to see if I can stay motivated to start and finish my very first afghan.  Check out my first two squares below.


And check back tomorrow to see what my next two squares will look like.

When I moved to my new website where I would be hosting my hat shop I told myself I wasn't going to place image branding on my item photos.  I just hate looking at photos online and seeing URL's and logo's pasted all over images.  However I recently had 3 of my beanie pictures stolen from my website and someone was actually trying to sell MY creations.  For this reason I will from now on be putting my hat shop's name and URL along with a makeshift logo that I adopted ages ago on all of my hat pictures.... at least the larger size ones anyway.  It's the only way I know to deter thieves from stealing my work.  So if you are like me and hate seeing text pasted on images I am sorry but I work very hard at making my creations and I have to take measures to protect my work and my reputation and keep my images off of other websites.

So, I still haven't come up with an official name for my new slouchy hat design, but I have been working on some new multicolor stripe designs for the hats. For these stripe patterns I have chosen a set of 12 colors. I have codenamed this list of colors as "Casino Royal". This codename is not official for the intended designs I plan to produce in the future. I am probably going to change over to some other weird movie theme set for the hats I'm going to produce. Casino Royal just happened to be the latest movie I watched when I started coming up with these designs (for those who don't know, I sometimes associate my designs around movie themes or movie characters because I love movies so much). Anyway I thought I would post these color picks and stripe patterns so my fans can get a small peek into my design mind. Please do not ask me for the actual stitch patterns for my slouchy hats and no I will not reveal my method of color picking. It is a trade secret. **smile**


1. Antique Teal
2. Black
3. Forest Green
4. Red
5. Sungold
6. Antique White
7. Toasted Almond
8. Soft Blue
9. Terra Cotta
10. Dark Olive
11. Burnt Pumpkin
12. Linen

CR015
-----

Round 1: Red
Round 2: Antique White
Round 3: Antique White
Round 4: Red
Round 5: Toasted Almond
Round 6: Terra Cotta
Round 7: Toasted Almond
Round 8: Sungold
Round 9: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 10: Red
Round 11: Toasted Almond
Round 12: Forest Green
Rounds 13-16: Terra Cotta

Drawstring: Solid terra cotta.

---------------------------------

CR014
-----

Round 1: Dark Olive
Round 2: Forest Green
Round 3: Dark Olive
Round 4: Sungold
Round 5: Antique White
Round 6: Sungold
Round 7: Forest Green
Round 8: Antique Teal
Round 9: Antique Teal
Round 10: Linen
Round 11: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 12: Red
Rounds 13-16: Antique White

Drawstring: Solid antique white

---------------------------------


CR013
-----

Round 1: Black
Round 2: Antique White
Round 3: Forest Green
Round 4: Soft Blue
Round 5: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 6: Red
Round 7: Forest Green
Round 8: Toasted Almond
Round 9: Dark Olive
Round 10: Toasted Almond
Round 11: Red
Round 12: Antique White
Rounds 13-16: Toasted Almond

Drawstring: Solid toasted almond.

-------------------------------------


CR012
-----

Round 1: Black
Round 2: Antique Teal
Round 3: Sungold
Round 4: Soft Blue
Round 5: Toasted Almond
Round 6: Forest Green
Round 7: Terra Cotta
Round 8: Antique Teal
Round 9: Black
Round 10: Linen
Round 11: Red
Round 12: Antique White
Rounds 13-16: Soft Blue

Drawstring: Solid soft blue.

----------------------------------


CR011
-----

Round 1: Red
Round 2: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 3: Sungold
Round 4: Antique Teal
Round 5: Sungold
Round 6: Antique White
Round 7: Terra Cotta
Round 8: Linen
Round 9: Red
Round 10: Sungold
Round 11: Linen
Round 12: Terra Cotta
Rounds 13-16: Linen

Drawstring: Solid linen

------------------------------


CR010
-----

Round 1: Black
Round 2: Antique White
Round 3: Toasted Almond
Round 4: Red
Round 5: Red
Round 6: Terra Cotta
Round 7: Terra Cotta
Round 8: Linen
Round 9: Terra Cotta
Round 10: Forest Green
Round 11: Sungold
Round 12: Sungold
Rounds 13-16: Red

Drawstring: Solid red.

-------------------------------

CR009
-----

Round 1: Linen
Round 2: Black
Round 3: Forest Green
Round 4: Toasted Almond
Round 5: Antique Teal
Round 6: Forest Green
Round 7: Sungold
Round 8: Linen
Round 9: Black
Round 10: Dark Olive
Round 11: Dark Olive
Round 12: Dark Olive
Rounds 13-16: Sungold

Drawstring: Solid sungold.

--------------------------------

CR008
-----

Round 1: Forest Green
Round 2: Red
Round 3: Black
Round 4: Antique White
Round 5: Linen
Round 6: Toasted Almond
Round 7: Red
Round 8: Forest Green
Round 9: Black
Round 10: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 11: Terra Cotta
Round 12: Forest Green
Rounds 13-16: Antique Teal

Drawstring: Solid antique teal.

--------------------------------

CR007
-----

Round 1: Linen
Round 2: Antique Teal
Round 3: Linen
Round 4: Black
Round 5: Dark Olive
Round 6: Dark Olive
Round 7: Forest Green
Round 8: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 9: Sungold
Round 10: Toasted Almond
Round 11: Terra Cotta
Round 12: Sungold
Round 13-16: Linen

Drawstring: Solid linen

---------------------------------

CR006
-----

Round 1: Red
Round 2: Black
Round 3: Terra Cotta
Round 4: Black
Round 5: Sungold
Round 6: Soft Blue
Round 7: Sungold
Round 8: Terra Cotta
Round 9: Sungold
Round 10: Terra Cotta
Round 11: Antique White
Round 12: Antique White
Rounds 13-16: Dark Olive

Drawstring: Solid dark olive.

------------------------------

CR005
-----

Round 1: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 2: Black
Round 3: Linen
Round 4: Sungold
Round 5: Sungold
Round 6: Forest Green
Round 7: Toasted Almond
Round 8: Burnt Pumpkin
Round 9: Black
Round 10: Sungold
Round 11: Dark Olive
Round 12: Black
Rounds 13-16: Red

Drawstring: Solid red.

---------------------------------


CR004
-----

Round 1: Red
Round 2: Sungold
Round 3: Antique White
Round 4: Forest Green
Round 5: Antique White
Round 6: Antique White
Round 7: Toasted Almond
Round 8: Antique White
Round 9: Antique Teal
Round 10: Red
Round 11: Black
Round 12: Soft Blue
Rounds 13-16: Antique White

Drawstring: Solid antique white.

-----------------------------


CR003
-----

Rounds 1-2: Soft Blue
Rounds 3-4: Toasted Almond
Rounds 5-6: Antique White
Rounds 7-8: Burnt Pumpkin
Rounds 9-10: Linen
Rounds 11-12: Black
Rounds 13-16: Antique White

Drawstring: Solid antique white.


-----------------------------



CR002
-----

Rounds 1-2: Antique Teal
Rounds 3-4: Toasted Almond
Rounds 5-6: Sungold
Rounds 7-8: Toasted Almond
Rounds 9-10: Antique White
Rounds 11-12: Soft Blue
Rounds 13-16: Toasted Almond

Drawstring: Solid toasted almond.

----------------------------


CR001
-----

Rounds 1-2: Sungold
Rounds 3-4: Forest Green
Rounds 5-6: Antique White
Rounds 7-8: Linen
Rounds 9-10: Antique White
Rounds 11-12: Forest Green
Rounds 13-16: Sungold

Drawstring: Solid sungold.

--------------------------

You have probably heard me mention in the recent past that I have been working on a new hat style created and designed by me. Well, good news!! I've finished making up about seven of them and I will be getting some photos taken of them very soon and will begin adding them to the shop. The best part is that these new hats are going to be a part of my first model specific designs geared for direct custom ordering. That is because these new hats are made in solid colors and the first custom order option for these hats will be for any solid color you choose for the design. I will be working stripes into these designs at a later time.

PRICE CHANGES: This is the only mention of a future price change I have planned for my 2X2 rib pattern beanies for men. The price on those hats will be increasing sometime over the next few months after I have done some maintenance work at David's Hat Factory. What this means to you right now is that those hats are now currently available at a great bargain so you should grab one or two up before the price change. I have no specific date for the price adjustment but it will happen before the fall season of 2010. They make great gifts, are loved by everyone who has bought one, and it is never to late or too early for any season to get one or give as a gift.

Well that is the latest update from your favorite hat maker at David's Hat Factory. Hopefully I'll get a sneak peek photo of the new hats up soon.

Great news I fixed my laptop. It took several scans of my hard drive with SuperAntiSpyWare, MalwareBytes, and my Eset Nod32 and then a brief internet connection troubleshooting with internet explorer to finally rid the virus and get the computer back online. As far as I can tell my laptop is completely clean of the virus and is running just fine. This makes me very happy for many reasons.... First, now I don't have to spend unjustified money to buy a new computer right now even though I still want that Asus Netbook. Second, I now have my favorite computer back in full operation with everything I use on it and still set up just the way I like it so I don't have to worry about setting everything up on a new computer or having to do a much feared factory restoration and then install all my software again. Third, everything feels normal again. I did not realize how important my computer is to me until I wasn't able to use it to it's full potential. I really need to get a back up of all my files incase I have another virus attack. I need to get on that pronto!

I have a gateway laptop that I have been using for years... at least five years or maybe six. Last night I was surfing on a now known sketchy traffic exchange website and stumbled on some crazy website that installed one of those fake antivirus programs on my laptop. I should have known better than to keep surfing on that site but I didn't realize the danger I was putting my faithful old laptop in. I was just trying to gain some exposure for my my hat shop.

If blogexplosion would have approved my blog (I don't know what their problem is) then this probably never would have happened, but you can't ever be sure about things like that.

Luckily I have been sucessful in removing most of the virus that my laptop has on it, however I am not able to access the internet with it. I can thankfully still access windows explorer and will be able to get all of my important website files, pictures, music, and documents off of the hard drive before I attempt to restore the computer. And luckily I still have my desktop computer so I can still easily maintain my blogs and website.... So continue ordering as you wish. I still have access to the internet and if worse comes to worst I have my internet capable cellphone which I am using to type this post... so this little problem I have with my laptop being handicapped will not leave me stranded out in the water with no way of getting to dry land. It's a good thing I always keep at least one backup computer incase something like this happens.

I am making plans to get a new laptop (most likely a netbook) to replace my laptop but I need to shop around at different places to see where the good deals are. Asus has a cool 12 inch screen netbook and I believe my local BestBuy may have some in stock and I have been thinking about getting one so I may go out today and check them out. I may even get one today since I now need a new portable computer...

This kinda sucks because that was my favorite computer and now I can't get on the web with it but I will manage until I can sort the problem out.

Maybe I'll have that new netbook to brag about soon.

I got bored with the old template. So I've updated to a new dark themed template. I kinda like it. I especially love the skull background. I forget where I found that at but I think it's pretty cool and fits me well since many of my past templates have also had skull backgrounds. I may play around with the colors a bit and do another update soon but I like what I've got for now.

In other news, I am catching up on orders and I am also working on some new slouchy hats. I think I may have already mentioned the slouchy hats before but I don't remember haha. I have to come up with a cool name for them before I post them on this blog and add them to my hat shop. Oh and there are going to be three versions of it which I think is going to be really cool. There will be a slightly slouchy version, a super slouchy version, and a seriously slouchy version. I am currently working on the slightly slouchy versions now and I am doing one in all of my favorite solid colors. I think I have about 8 of them finished and I went out and bought more yarn last week so I could do more and hopefully I'll get them finished this week by Thursday so that I can get some photos taken of them and start getting them posted.

Well I need to stop typing and get to crocheting. Those hats aren't going to make themselves haha.

I am always getting asked how long does it take to finish one of your hats and how long will my order take. Normal wait time on orders usually run anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks. It can sometimes take a month if I have a handful of orders.

Coming soon in 2010 I am going to be offering what I like to call simply RUSH SERVICE. This will be a service provided at a $35.00 fee and the following is what you get with it.

• Basically I drop everything in my life to work on and complete your order. I will turn off my computers, put my cellphone on silent, turn off the tv and do nothing but work on your order. No distractions.
• If you purchase my RUSH SERVICE your order will be placed at the top of the list. In fact if I am currently working on an order when you place your order with RUSH SERVICE I will put the order I'm currently working on to the side and immediately get to work on your order. As a limitation to this rule, if someone before you has also purchased rush service then your order will be placed behind their order but still ahead of all other orders.
• And finally, once your order is complete and processed you will be given RUSH DELIVERY at the post office free of charge. Note: All basic shipping fees will still apply to your order.

This new rush service is an option. It is not a requirement for ordering. This will be a great option if you need an order finished FAST.

This new service will be added soon and I will be posting more about this on David's Hat Factory website very soon.

Hey everyone I thought I'd pop onto the blog to write a short note to let everyone know I'm still alive. Yep I'm still functioning lol. I've just been keeping it kinda quite. That is why you haven't been seeing me much on Twitter or elsewhere for the last week or so. I'm just kinda taking sort of a communication break while catching up and finishing orders so that I can get myself in gear to finish working on some new beanies I want to add to my shop and do some website maintenance over at David's Hat Factory. I know some of you guys miss me and I appreciate that... really I do but don't worry I'm still here. I'm just chillin' out and creating some more goodies for you guys.

Well if you would like to know a little bit about what is going on in my personal life I recently became reconnected with my childhood best friend. Actually we were young teenage buddies but whatever.... we were very young when we were friends. We lost contact with each other way back in the 80's when we were in 8th or 9th grade (I think). He went to a private school and I got stuck at my crappy public school and we never saw each other again. I never forgot about my buddy and always wondered through the years how he was doing in life. just recently on Facebook we found each other again. I can't tell you how cool it is to be back in touch with him and I'm looking forward to catching up on all the years that he and I missed while moving on in our lives. His name is Jamie and we were both kind of the outcast kids in school together but we banned together as friends and we used to have so much fun... mostly at his house because his parents were "cooler" than mine lol... I remember and miss so much all the times we would watch MTV or movies in his living room or dive in the pool in his back yard... all the sleepover's we had... those were the days. I am going to Atlanta in the first week of February to meet up with my old friend and enjoy catching up on our lives since the last time we saw each other. I think it is going to be so fun. Already it seems this year is getting off to a nice start. I couldn't have thought of a better way to start this year than by reconnecting with an old friend.

Well I'm off to finish up another order and I will be back on the twitter airwaves before too long. Catch up with you soon!!

One of the cool people I follow on twitter just posted his story about his weight loss. I thought I would post a link to his blog so other folks can read it who might be struggling to lose weight.

A lot of folks have been asking me if I had any pictures taken of me while working on my hats and I've been asked many times to post a few.  I have finally gotten around to doing it and you can see the pictures by clicking here.