A couple of months ago a knitter came to me with a moth-eaten baby bonnet, and a story:
In Linda's own words....
The yellow baby bonnet with ears was given to me by the sister of my lovely neighbour (Miyo Hamasaki). It was one item of MANY baby and toddler things that she had put into a very large box to give away to a mother with girls. She had two school-age daughters herself and she was not planning on having more children.
This give-away box contained clothes, shoes, toys, and books, all in pristine condition. As a young mother with not too much money this treasure-filled box was very welcome. We were able to use all of the things she gave us over time. The yellow bonnet is the one thing that I kept all these years, 28 years to be exact! Both my daughters wore it. A picture of my youngest daughter, Andrea is seen wearing it when she was about 18 months.
When it became too small for my girls to wear, I put it away to keep. Unfortunately, moths got to it (as you can plainly see) and it became unwearable.
My older daughter, Nicole is expecting in November, a mere two months away and I wanted to knit a bonnet with ears to replace the little yellow one that they use to like to wear. I looked and looked for a pattern but could not find one that was anywhere as cute as this one and this is where Kate came in.
A call to Lettuce Knit was all I needed to do. Kate was willing and very able to to decipher the pattern and create one for me so that I could produce one for my grandchild coming in November. I am thrilled as you can imagine and it will be and remain a treasured family pattern.
We recreated the bonnet in Road to China Light, a luscious blend of alpaca, silk, cashmere and camel. A special bonnet deserves a special yarn!
(Modeled very graciously by sleepy Nora.)
The pattern is available for sale for $5 at Lettuce Knit, and through Patternfish and Ravelry.
It uses less than 100m of a sport/DK weight yarn, so even if your yarn budget does not stretch to the Road to China, there's likely something in your stash that works very well. The bonnet fits a range of sizes - 3 to 6 months for an average size baby, and older for a petite little one like Andrea, in the photo above.
3 comments:
This is just one of the darlingest bonnets I have ever seen. Well done, everyone.
I know this pattern. I have knit it up many times. i am always buying old pattern books when i see them and I picked up this one because it had the cute kitty hat and mitts in it. It is a Paton's pattern book. when I knit it I modified the pattern quite a bit after the first bonnet because you had to sew it up and i prefer to knit it all in one piece. It was knit with a Paton's yarn called Fuzzy-Wuzzy but I have knit it up in many yarns from mohair to a soft fuzzy yarn called Image that has been discontinued. i also have knit it with novelty fur yarn in the first few rows when it was popular framing the little face with fur. I also knit little socks for the baby with cat paws on the bottoms to include with the bonnet as a shower present.
oh I am so excited to find this pattern! My friend just bought my baby a hat like this from Newfoundland. I wanted to learn to knit it for a baby with a bigger head like mine :) but couldn't find the pattern anywhere. Thanks!
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