Tuesday 9 February 2016

The Homemade Nursery: Baby hat (A free knitting pattern!)

As you may remember from my post about my Nurture Hope quilt, I am quite fortunate to be pregnant.  My husband and I had been holding off on doing much in terms of preparation for the baby until we took holidays back in November.  Then we got started and have been plugging away every since.  I'm going to share individual projects we embarked on over the past few months, and then a final blog post with the big reveal of the whole room. 

The Homemade Nursery: Baby hat (A free knitting pattern!)

I wanted to knit a warm, soft toque and mittens for our baby to wear after birth, because the due date is in February, which is the coldest month around here.

I had the perfect yarn in my stash that I had bought from Hobby Lobby a couple years ago. It is Bamboospun, and it's super soft and luxurious. I had it in two perfectly gender neutral colours, so I did a soft blue stripe along the bottom with the rest in grey. 

If you'd like to make one for yourself, here is the pattern! It took me about 2.5 hours total, but that includes ripping and restarting, and frogging the crown to try again. A little trial and error never hurt anyone! If you make the hat, leave a comment or tag me on Instagram (@_LT_Smash), I'd love to see it!

Yarn: Bulky (5) Bamboospun in Dark Sky and Seablue. I used way less than a ball of each. 
Needles: Set of 4 double pointed size 10 needles

Cast on 36 stitches using a stretchy cast on (I used the long tail cast on) in your stripe colour. 
Spread the stitches evenly over 3 needles (12 stitches per needle) and join without twisting to knit in the round.  
Row 1: knit all stitches
Row 2: K1P1 across entire row
Row 3: P1K1 across entire row
Row 4: Switch to main colour and knit all stitches
Continue knitting all rows until the hat measures 3" from the cast on edge. 
Begin crown:
Row 1: (K4, K2tog) repeat for entire row
Row 2: knit all stitches
Row 3: (K3, K2tog) repeat for entire row
Row 4: knit all stitches
Row 5: (K2, K2tog) repeat for entire row
Row 6: knit all stitches
Row 7: (K1, K2tog) repeat for entire row
Row 8: knit all stitches
Row 9: K2tog across entire row
You should have 2 stitches on each needle, for a total of 6 stitches. Cut the tail of your yarn and using a tapestry needle, draw the tail through all 6 stitches and pull the stitches tight. Weave in the tail, and any other yarn ends. 

This is a great project that takes just a little bit of yarn, so it is a great way to use up scraps of bulky yarn you have in your stash. I'm very happy with the hat, and think it is just perfectly soft and warm for a fresh baby's head.  Up next: matching mittens!

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