I have a cousin who has managed to mold a lifelong hobby into a legitimate career. He has lived and breathed basketball, as far as I can tell, for his entire life, and now he’s a sports writer who follows all his favorite NBA teams, watches every game, and interviews the players and coaches for a living. (Obviously, lately he’s been following more legal shenanigans than actual games, but… that’s really not relevant to the post.)
It seemed only natural, when I learned he and his wife were expecting a little girl, to make something special and basketball-ish.
Possibly I was a little too literal?
In all seriousness, I actually put a good bit of thought into the design. I could have gone for the plain old beanie design, thrown some stripes on and called it a day.
“Hey, cuz! Check it out! Now your kid’s head is a basketball!”
But baby beanies are just so… common.
Furthermore, I wanted to add some element of fashion, because my tiny victim’s mother is a dance teacher who somehow even manages to add some style to her slouching-around-the-house clothes.
Clearly, I needed some kitsch. Something hip. Something that says, “I look at fashion trends at least once a year… y’know… when I’m bored.” Clearly, a newsboy cap was the way to go.
As an added bonus, I knew the smaller size of the hat would drastically reduce the problem I usually encounter with brimmed hats. Specifically, the brims tend to get… floppy. It’s a simple matter of physics, really. The kind of yarn I want to make a hat out of tends to be very flexible, and then the design of an adult-sized hat would call for a brim that is a good six to eight inches long, and more than an inch wide, at which point the flexibility of the yarn will cause the piece to droop. Since I am generally far too lazy to do something as involved as conjuring plastic inserts, I just very rarely make brimmed hats.
This is especially sad because I love brimmed hats.
As usual, any excuse will do, and I made a tiny brimmed hat with a tiny brim for my tiny new cousin!
unbound page 
What a beautiful baby!!! The hat’s cute, too! 🙂