and if you see a crocodile then don't forget to scream - Eeeek!

What do you do when your son gets invited to a 'Peter Pan' party and he decides that he wants to go as the crocodile?

After giving up on the idea of sticking a load of empty egg boxes all over him thought about trying to make some sort of hat, and because crochet is so lovely and structural I got some green yarn and my trusty hook and made a start.

To make the hat shape I bought a simple green peaked toddler hat and spent quite a bit of time working out how to make a close fitting crochet cover for it. For the peak at the front I made a separate piece (roughly a semicircle) which had an extra 'lip' around the curve so that it would stay fixed on the hat. After joining these two pieces together and tacking around the bottom of the hat I was left with one crocheted hat.

Next job was to try and make it look like a crocodile... so I needed to come up with eyes, teeth and nostrils - while remembering Sam's instructions that he wanted it to 'look like a friendly crocodile so I don't scare anyone away'.

After spending some time browsing crocodile photos online I made some very white pointy teeth to go down each side with one being slightly longer in the middle (real croc's teeth all seem to stick out all over the place). What to do with the eyes was a real conundrum... the photos online showed that crocodile eyes peep out from the top of their head... to try and get this effect I settled with sticking some felt eyes on the front with little crochet eyebrows over them to try and give the impression that they were raised up. I also made the pupils larger than a real croc as I thought this made it look 'friendlier'. Last to add were some little crochet dimples for nostrils and the hat was done.

I'm really so proud of how this hat turned out - Sam & Emily both love wearing it and it has been worn so much.