welcoming home baby: party on your head hat

I just whipped up a stinkin' cute baby hat using the kit I bought waaay back in August last year when I visited Knit1 in Oxford on my yarn crawl across Mississippi. Unfortunately, the kit didn't identify the actual yarns included, but I suspect the purple wool is Malabrigo, I know the pink ruffle yarn is Cha-Cha, and I have no clue what the purpley-blue ribbon yarn could be ... any ideas? Regardless, I love the color combo! The kit included a pre-made pom pom, which even further sped up construction. It's a little bigger than I probably would have made it, but I like it. It seems to balance out the flouncy-ness of the Cha-Cha ruffles quite well ...

The pattern? It's the "Party on Your Head Hat" (don't you just love that name?) that is the depicted on the cover of Welcoming Home Baby by Tricia Drake (see my Ravelry project details).

The book is full of fun, quick knit hats, baby blankets and those "cocoons" that have become trendy for baby announcement glamour photo shoots. Personally, the cocoons kind of freak me out (I can't stop myself from thinking about suffocation) and I don't see the point of knitting something that will be used once as a prop in a photo shoot ... but that's just me. For me, the hats and the blankets make this book a worthwhile purchase alone. One word of warning, though ... this author likes the good stuff when it comes to yarn. These projects all use pretty high-end luxury yarns that frankly, are not practical at all (unless you are willing to handwash like crazy!). I'm not sure how easily you could make substitions, either, since most of the designs hinge upon the unique qualities of these yarns. So these projects aren't necessarily intended for heavy everyday use and the dirt, stains, spit-up, etc. that would come with that. But if you love using nice yarns and want to make something spectacular as an extra special gift for that new one, this book is perfect.