Umbilical Cord Baby Hat

I seem to be getting to the point in life where a lot of my friends are starting to have babies.  Last spring, almost exactly a year ago, the first of my group of friends had her darling baby girl, shortly after my wedding another friend from college also had a girl, and two weeks ago our neighbors welcomed a baby boy.  Of course, with all of these babies comes baby showers and I was at a bit of a loss of what to get, especially since I knew I couldn't go to my college friends shower.

I wanted to make these babies something special, and it started with Miss P last spring.  I came across this pattern for an Umbilical Cord baby hat in Debbie Stroller's book Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook
 (Side note, this 100% my ideas and not a sponsored post at all, but that book, along with Stitch 'n Bitch Nation are my two favorite knitting books. They are great for beginners and the patterns are easy to follow.  Some of them are kind of funky (rocker wristbands anyone?) but lots of them are cute and easy and I love how she explains the basics of knitting - tons of great illustrations)

Anyways, so I first made the baby hat for Miss P last April.  She's turning one on Saturday, and her mom told me how she was outgrowing the original hat I had made her.  So as part of her 1st birthday present, I decided to make her a bigger hat!

It was pretty easy to do.  I added 8 stitches to the cast on to make it slightly bigger around, and then I knit an extra half inch before starting to decrease.  I saw Miss P last night and it fits perfectly!  I was pretty happy (and so glad that mom had liked the hat enough to want a second one!)  This is now my go to gift for baby showers.  I love it because it is a cute and fun (and practical) homemade gift.  It knits up fast and mom's love it because it's washable.  A win all around!

If  your interested in the Debbie Stroller books, you can find them here on Amazon!

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