A while back, a dear friend of mine announced that she was expecting a baby girl! I am so inspired by this woman all the time that I decided to design a baby bonnet for the occasion. My friend is an artist in her own right and her husband creates the most beautiful furniture. Her instagram, theshoebridges, is a feast for the eyes and her Etsy shop, Shoebrigeandco,  is even better. (check it out!)

It was this mirror from their Etsy store that started me on my design path. The color play between the blues and white is so striking and I wanted to interpret that into knitting.

After many hours spent scouring the internet for china patterns, willow patterns, ming dynasty vases, and delftware, I started sketching and scribbling and putting together something like this:

Which probably looks like rubbish, but I was getting excited as I saw my vision finally start to take shape. After a quick pit stop at knitpicks.com, and a short wait for my white, navy, and rhapsody Stroll to arrive, I cast on and quickly knit up the cutest little bonnet, yet!

I actually didn’t strand all the colors. Some of the darker blue is duplicate stitched on after the knitting was done. I didn’t want to have long floats on a baby item.

The bonnet is worked from the front to the back, basically making a rectangle. The crown is created by joining in the round after the color work is complete and decreasing to the center. Then I picked up stitches along the neckline to knit a nice edge which I then attached I-cord ties to.

Just to make sure it was girlie enough, I then crocheted a tiny little lace edge around the face.

After all was finished (and blocked on a wee balloon! so cute!), I then had to wait WEEKS for baby to make her debut. And when she finally did, she did not disappoint.

Ah, tiny baby in tiny knits. Be still my heart!