Hat teaser

It’s not that I haven’t been knitting…

• The Vodka Lemonade sweater is done and blocked… but not photographed. (Frankly, I’m stymied as to how to style it. Ideas welcome.) I bound off on May 27 and it’s criminal that it’s not photographed yet. But the end of each school year brings quite a whirlwind of activities…
• The handspun Clockwork is nearly done – I have one more row and a bindoff – so expect that soon!

In the meantime, I whipped up a couple more hats. Babies are expected.This one is supposed to look like a blueberry (just say you agree even if you don’t). It’s Ann Norling’s famous Kid’s Fruit Cap (pattern #10) with some modifications. I replaced the stockinette roll brim with 10 rounds of 2x2 twisted rib, because I like putting hats on babies that you can snug down over their ears. You can’t see the ribbing in this photo because I was limited in my ability to style. The hat is stretched over a bowl, which is inverted on a wine glass. Ha! The blueberry hat is for my farmer’s first baby, who is expected in July… so I made the medium size. My first baby’s head was ginormous so I always err on the size of big. I want it to fit when the weather turns cooler.

I gave my farmer the choice of apple, blueberry, or pumpkin, and she picked blueberry (without knowing what I was talking about… she will be very surprised to receive knitwear instead of jam or something, I imagine). But I know that my colleague wanted a pumpkin hat for her first baby (and never had one) so it’s a no brainer to knit a pumpkin for her second baby, due in OCTOBER. Here it is:As with the blueberry, I replaced the roll brim with ribbing. I also made the body of the hat 6x2 ribbing to better resemble a pumpkin. And… I added a leaf and a tendril! These make me unbelievably happy. The leaf is from Alana Dakos’ Botanical Knits (there is a pattern called “little leaves” just inside the back cover, page 112) and the tendril uses the “corkscrew fringe” technique from Nicky Epstein’s The Essential Edgings Collection: 500 of Her Favorite Original Borders (page 38). I got that book from Steven for Christmas and it came in very handy!

Of course, I’ll be making a slightly larger pumpkin hat for baby’s older sister, who will be 26 months old when baby is born. Older siblings need gifts, too, and if anything is more cute than a baby in a pumpkin hat, it’s two small children in matching pumpkin hats. Squeee!