Bluebell ja Rose Kesäpipot

So, not everything that I've done lately has turned out like I had wished. Take the following foto as an example. Try and guess which one I did first - the red one or the purple one?

If you guessed the red one, you would be correct. So why do I not class the red one as a success? Because it was supposed to be for an 18-month-old baby. And it's even too big for my noggin. The purple one came second and seems to be a much more fitting size for a little girl. Oh well, live and learn!

Pattern: Bluebell ja Rose Kesäpipot (bluebell and rose summer caps) by Pia Tuononen (her blog here), published in Ulla 02/05 in Finnish here and in English here (Ravelry link).

Red cap

Needles: 4mm bamboo dps

Yarn:

• Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino Wool DK
• 100% Extra Fine Merino Wool
• 50gr=116m
• colour #017 (red) and #019 (green)
• about 40 grams of red and 10 grams of green used

So the original pattern is designed for a 6-month-old and the little girl in question is 18-months-old. I had a look at some charts of the difference in head size between kids of those ages and realised that the difference is quite significant, which is why I chose to go up a needle size from the pattern-recommend size.

Not the best idea that I've ever come up with, but you can't blame a girl for trying.

And so came the second cap.

Purple Cap

Needles: 3.5mm 40cm bamboo circular and bamboo dps

Yarn Details:

• Garnstudio Drops Alapca (yep, can't get away from the stuff for very long)
• 100% Alpaca
• 50gr = 180m
• colour #3770 (purple) and #7323 (green)
• about 20 grams of purple and hardly any green used

Much better! The cap looks to be the right size and feels nice and soft and warm, thanks to my favourite yarn.

This pattern is really easy and quick. The only change to the original pattern that I made was every second decrease at the crown. In the original pattern, all decreases were the same, but I modified every second decrease to a central decrease (sl2togkwise, k1, p2sso) to match with the corresponding increases on the body of the hat.