WIP Wednesday: Sun Hat Obsession

I've gone to the beach several times in the last few weeks, and it has made me realize the gap in my wardrobe: a sun hat that fits my giant head. I have a very large head for a female, so I can never fit into the hats in stores. I've toyed with the idea of making one for a long time, but I recently found some raffia yarn for very inexpensive on Temu which has made it all more a reality for me to make.

I started looking at what hat patterns were available, and I settled on 2 different ones that both happen to be free and from the same author. The first one is this Raffia Beach Hat by Joanne Loh - this is just a classic wide brim sun hat and is just what I'm looking for. It would be nice if it had some kind of more interesting stitch than just single crochet, but that is very secondary to actually having a good hat to wear. I plan on adding plastic boning to the brim to retain its shape. 

Then I also liked this hat for days I don't want the wide brim - this is the Raffia Bucket Hat by Joanne Loh. I like the decorative stitch and that it's just enough of a brim to protect from the sun. My plan is that if I have raffia leftover from the other hat, I will make this one as well. 

The yarn I got is Navy colored and I think it will just be a lot of fun :) I will say - crocheting with raffia is definitely a different animal than any other yarn I've ever used - I even broke the yarn once. It's much slower to stitch and I have to make sure not to pull each stitch super tight like I do for toys and whatnot, but it's going along and I'm excited to have a practical item to wear this summer as I take my kids to the beach more.

And with how it looks so far, how could I not be excited? lol

What do you have going this week? Anything new and exciting?