Sweet, sassy, and all sorts of fun, the hat and cap designs in Scrumptious Toppers for Tots & Toddlers are the perfect knitted baby accessories for the little ones in your life! Knitting maven Debby Ware, creator of the famous Debby Ware knit kits sold nationwide, has drawn on her years of experience to create this enchanting collection of colorful, quirky hand-knit hats for tots.

Scrumptious Toppers for Tots & Toddlers is a must for your knitting reference library, and it's the perfect gift for expectant moms, grandmothers, or anyone who loves to knit.

Here you'll find 30 pint-sized knit hat and cap patterns that come in bright, unexpected color combinations -- lots more than just pastel pink and blue. You'll want to make every one, from the Glitter and Glow Beanie to the Rainbow Sack Hat.

Three separate sections -- Homecoming, Hooplas, and Humdingers -- are filled with complete knitting patterns and instructions for hats that will charm and captivate you. Just imagine any of these on a smiling baby: Newborn Beanie, Hobo Hat, Peppermint Cap, Feathers and Fringe Fedora and many more, all designed to fit newborns to two-year-olds.

There are delightful hand-knit creations to mark special occasions, too, including the Birthday Cupcake Cap, Halloween Hat, Tea Garden Hat, Firecracker Topper, and for festive days, the Glittery Holiday and Holly Holiday Hats. These eye-catching toppers are easy to knit, perfect for beginning to more advanced knitters. These inventive knitwear patterns offer endless opportunities to unleash your own creativity and to mix and match colors.

Hand knit and made with love, these charming knit hats are not only welcome gifts today but destined to be instant family heirlooms to be enjoyed for years!

About the Author
Debby Ware is the founder of Debby Ware Knitwares, which sells baby knit kits -- a pattern plus yarn -- to more than 800 stores and catalogers across the country. She is also the author and co-author on books dedicated to knitting for babies.

Introduction

Homecomings
Glitter & Glow Beanie
Birthday Cupcake Cap
Baby Beastie Beanie
Newborn Beanie
Greenie Beanie
Fancy Scrumptious Beanie
Rainbow Sack Hat
Hobo Hat
Baby Chick Cap

Hooplas
Halloween Hat
Glittery Holiday Hat
Tea Garden Hat
Holly Holiday Hat
Black and White and Red All Over
Crystal Party Hat
Fizzle Ruffle Beanie
Pretty-in-Pink Cap
Peppermint Candy Cap
Firecracker Topper
Hearts & Flowers Hat

Humdingers
Black & Bright Beret
Circles & Dots Beret
Heavenly Harlequin Hat
Wee Wild One
Feathers & Fringe Fedora
Bull's-Eye Beret
Bobble Beanie
Squiggle Circus Beanie
Lemon Drop Crown
Swirls & Cherries Beret

Abbreviations

Special Stitches

Standard Yarn Weights

Sources

Welcome to my zany world of knitting for babies!

It is not just a world of delicate pastel pinks and blues, but also one filled with bright and unusual color combinations. The 30 hat projects in this book include traditional designs with new twists as well as modern shapes that are easy to create.

My mother, Charlotte, taught me how to knit when I was only eight, and it has been my passion ever since. I cannot remember a time since then that I haven't been working on a sweater for myself or a good friend. It took me years to learn to stop knitting for boyfriends. It always seemed that the romance was finished just when the sweater was. That's why I still haven't made a sweater for my husband, Will!

I find knitting hats for babies to be a particularly satisfying experience. When designing them, I get inspired by so many things -- different colors and shapes, a passing glance at some delightful dessert, or even a chicken! Using graph paper and colored pencils to first sketch an idea is probably prudent, but that's just not my style. I start with needles and some wonderful yarn, then jump in full swing and enjoy the ride. I may have an idea of where I want a project to go, but it usually leads me in an entirely different direction. Who would ever guess, for example, that the Baby Chick Cap started out as an attempt to create a princess crown?

Sometimes what ends up on my needles is pretty awful and I start all over again, but that doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed myself along the way, and this method has led me to some great designs. So don't be afraid to use my patterns as a starting point to your own one-of-a-kind creations. Any way you decide to knit them, the hats in this book will turn out as wearable tokens of affection that the baby you have in mind will love. The projects are so quick to complete that there's no chance of tedium setting in, and unlike socks or gloves, you only need to create one!

Yarns for these projects range from colorful cottons to warm chenilles and soft, glittery nylons. I mostly suggest machine-washable yarns throughout the book, but even in today's busy world, hand-washing a small baby hat is doable. The few novelty yarns I recommend are used repeatedly in my designs, so buy just one skein and you'll be set.

A word about sizing: Babies are born with different size heads, and those head sizes vary even more during the first year. The ages and corresponding hat sizes given here are suggestions. Be sure to measure the head of the baby for whom you are creating these wonderful hats so you can be sure the fit is right. Remember that cotton is a fickle fiber -- it tends to resist stretching when used with certain stitches, like seed stitch. Keep that in mind when sizing your hats.

Customer Reviews from Amazon

Most of these hats have a lot of "after work", as in duplicate stitch, bullion stitch, patches sewn on, etc., so you're not done after you knit the hat. If you have lots of small amounts of scrap yarns in your knitting stash, there are some cute ideas here.


Also, I can see why in the editorial comments they say these will be heirloom hats--you should immediately take them away from your baby/toddler after the pictures are taken because these fluffy yarns can and do shed, and you don't want your child chewing on them.

As to the sizing issues, some of that can be fixed by using wool or acrylic yarns, which will stretch an inch or two, or a slightly larger needle/yarn.

If you have any of the author's other books (I have Too Cute!), you might find that there are not enough new patterns to warrant purchasing this one. Check out of your library first.

I read some of the so-so reviews, but thought to myself "How can that be, the hat on the front of the book looks so cute??" Oh, it's true! The hats are not so cute, and not one of the hats pictured in the book looks like it fits. I would not reccommend this book to anyone! Buy Itty Bitty Hats and learn the basics from that book and branch out from there. You will get nothing and I mean nothing from this book.

Hats are cute, but not sized for about toddler stage, so you have to resize the pattern yourself.

The hats in this book are cute but rather silly and I hate books that specify a particular brand of yarn so that is you want to substitue you have to figure out what else is conpatible. Will I knit any of them? Maybe one. Fun to look at but not a necessary book for your collection.

I am addicted to making baby hats and buy every book to help me develop my skills. This book has the cutest patterns and ideas you will see. Debbie Ware incorporates ribbons, buttons, silk flowers and felt to create wonderful hats for little boys and girls. I have completed the first project in the book for newborns and it turned out great. My only criticism is that every project in the book is made on size 4 circular needles. This makes the projects a bit more tedious to work up as the needles are so small. There are no instructions for increasing sizes. I'm sure a more skilled knitters would know how to increase by gauge, but most other books do give instructions for older babies. Over all I like the book, but Itty Bitty Hats is still my number one favorite!

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