Baby Hat

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A friend of mine had her first grandchild born a couple weeks ago, so I made him this little hat, which I finished last night:

Specs:

• Yarn: Cascade Fixation (98.3% cotton/1.7% elastic) in Turquoise (#2706)
  
• Gauge*: 5.5 stitches per inch*
• Needles: U.S. size 7 (4.5mm) Clover Bamboo 7½" DPNs
• Pattern: Cast on 77 stitches, join in round, knit every row for 5", decrease according to Super Simple Hat Calculator down to 4 remaining stitches; knit i-cord for 2½"; finish, weave in ends; tie knot in i-cord.
• Size: 14" circumference (unstretched)
  

* measuring gauge with this yarn is tricky, since it's so stretchy, and the final product is also stretchy. At various times throughout the process I measured it at 4.5 spi, then 5.5 spi, then 6 spi. So knitting this was somewhat of a crapshoot, and took a couple of attempts, before settling down to something I was happy with. And row gauge is about a thousand rows to the inch, so it felt like I was never going to finish this deceptively tiny hat....

Typically, I reserve roll-brim hats for females, but since he's a newborn, I'm guessing the other babies will cut him some slack, and not question his manhood. He was born a little early, but weighed a decent 7 lbs. at birth, so I think this hat should work for his head, especially with the built-in stretch factor of the elastic yarn.

Here's the hat being modeled by an angel doll given to me by another friend, and made by her daughter, who calls her line of dolls "Savannah's Angels" (named after her youngest):

Savannah's Angel
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I'll be seeing the new grandma tonight, and can give her the hat then.

In other scintillating hat news, I've thought long and hard about what to do for Little Brother's replacement hat.

Malabrigo worsted in "Vaa" (#51) and "Verdes" (#203)
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After much googling to see how that Malabrigo worsted in "Verdes" looks knitted up, I came to the conclusion that he'd never wear something so variegated on his head. So I'm going to save the Verdes for a pattern like My So-called Scarf, (perhaps for his birthday gift next year), because that stitch pattern looks great with variegated yarns. (I even lucked out and found a version of it knit in that colorway, here).

Now that the yarn decision has been made (Malabrigo worsted in "Vaa"), the next decision became - what style or pattern to knit? More googling ensued, and again I got lucky and found great inspiration on this blog post, specifically in this picture. Eureka! The hat version of the Irish hiking scarf! I found a pattern for it here, (scroll down a bit in her right sidebar), and although it's not identical to the one in the previous picture, it's close enough.

And it's Irish!

And it will be my first attempt at cables, (let's hope I'm not reaching beyond my grasp here).

And I've got six days to knit it, so this slow-poke knitter better get crackin'!

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