posted by Lily on beach, clothes, crafty

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Way back in spring 2012, Mum rang me one day to see if I’d like a new hat for summer.  She was at a little boutique in downtown Merimbula and had found some very sweet, inexpensive crocheted paper hats.  I was keen so she picked out a sky blue one for me and one for herself – I can’t remember what colour yours is Mum!?  Brown – olive?

Anyways … I wore it everyday during our lovely lovely summer holiday at the beach.  And then, on the dreadfully hot day when the bushfire struck, we were cutting out four inch squares of lovely soft Japanese lawn.  Because of the length of fabric we had bought, there was a very narrow strip left over from most pieces.  Hmmm …. what to do …

- here I simply must insert these gorgeous photos of Mum’s cosmos
she is a wonderful gardener (I don’t take after her at all)
I took these on our last day in Merimbula & completely forgot about them
until tonight, when looking for photos of the hat …

ooooh!  and see this stump?  I can’t remember whether I’ve shared this, but where Mum’s house is, was once the family owned dairy farm that provided Merimbula with all its milk – very appropriate given just how much we Boots love our milk – at first we thought this fence was a gardener’s folly, but now wonder if it is, in fact, a remnant of the farm. Such a lovely thought.  Back to the hat …

After a few more days thought – and a lot of hat wearing – I decided to thread some through the hat – mayhaps a couple of rows around the brim?  So there, on our last day at Bar Beach, with seagulls a-watching, I began.  I used my crochet hook to pull the lengths of fabric through – up, down, up, down.  To start and finish, I simply tied a knot at the end of each length of fabric nice and close to the hat.

By the end of that night – most of the hat was covered!  Oh it’s the old lily story.  Once started, couldn’t stop.  I even unpicked the hem of the brim and wove a piece of fabric around that – like a very simple whipping.

I love it … such a cheerful and colourful hat … and a little bit wonky.  Perhaps a bit like its owner? :-)  And it’s had SUCH a good workout over the last couple of weeks.  Here’s the finished product whilst on duty at Birdrock Beach …

And at Mt. Martha’s Gelati Bar.  Three marvellous features – it’s instantly identifiably as mine, has a lovely low brim so offers wonderful protection from our aggressive sun, and is wonderfully crumpleable – I just squish it up and shove it in my handbag or basket – and when it comes out, it looks just like it did the day it arrived!

Thank you so much Mummy darling for thinking of me – it’s grown into my favourite hat ever :-)  And if you should want your hat to match, just send it my way ;-)

p.s. hope you love your cosmos photos xxx

Tags: cosmos, hat, merimbula