Beanies for teanies

Whipped up some quick beanies for Great Niece and Nephew back home in Australia. I used Drops Big Merino, which I purchased specifically for this on my last Stockholm trip. This yarn is sooooo lovely and soft, hard to believe it's 100% merino. The pattern is from Drops, available here, with a few modifications to reduce the size. It's a great pattern, knits up really quickly, I managed to make my way through with a 40cm circular, changing to two circulars when the reduced number of stitches were too tight. Each hat didn't take much more than an hour once all the swatching and pattern searching hours were over!

I used The Royal Sisters pattern for, Chunky Granny Flower, with a few modifications to make a flower brooch to attach to the brown hat to girlie it up. If the hat survives until Gemma grows out of it, my thinking was the brooch can be removed and the hat can be handed down to her younger brother. Of course makes it easier to remove it for washing, or can be attached to the pink beanie too.

Removable flower to girlie it up

Then the last of the chocolate was just enough to squeeze out a beanie for the youngest, with a pom pom that I'm hoping he won't pull apart!

smallest, for a 2year old

med - for a nearly 4 year old

largest - the only one made to the pattern size, for 5-7

Had a minor panic when I washed these for blocking, the yarn stretched enormously as soon as it was soaked, suddenly I had adult sized beanies! Kicking myself for not having washed my tension sample (my impatience always wins), I coaxed them back to size while drying flat on a towel. When very near dry I finished blocking them using a cereal bowl upturned over an upside down tall tumbler. The bowl worked quite well as the ribbing was lower than the bowl and sort of tucked under it enhancing the shape. 

If the washed size was anything to go by, it would appear these hats will probably fit for years!