New Baby Hat Pattern

I went to the library yesterday to return one book, and came home with three new ones. I browsed the knitting section, of course, and found ‘Knitting Vintage Socks’ by Nancy Bush. I bought ‘Folk Socks’ when I first started knitting socks, but hadn’t looked at this one yet.

Vintage Socks is a beautiful book, but at first glance not very useful to me. All the socks are top-down, and I’m knitting toe-up almost exclusively these days. Then I looked a bit closer at the rib stitches. Some are very fancy, almost lacey, and all are patterns I have not seen before. It struck me those fancy ribs might work on a baby hat.

I was concerned the patterns might not translate well from fingering weight to dk. The eyelets look small enough on the socks, but might turn into gaping holes when done with size 5 needles and dk yarn.

I started a hat last night, and finished 3” 1x1 cuff just before bedtime. This morning I am starting with the Bed Sock pattern on page 45. I have 2 repeats done, and it looks like a winner. It should be a very stretchy hat; the eyelets are visible, but not overly large. The pink emphasizes the feminine aspect of lace, and will be adorable on someone's little girl.

I realized this morning I should have cast on 36 stitches and knitted a long sampler of the patterns I want to try out. But this hat is almost half done, and I won’t rip that much. I’ll start a swatch after this hat is off the needles.

I’m pretty excited, I hadn’t thought of using sock patterns for baby hats. Sock patterns are a perfect source of new stitches, plus they are already written for knitting in the round. Earlier I knitted a pair of bed socks for myself using the Links of Lace pattern on Woolworks' site. I think that stitch would be another winner for a baby hat.