Beary Nice Hat, Mitts, and Booties

This holiday season I saw animal themed hats almost everywhere I looked.  I have been making quite a few hats, so I decided to give knitting up a teddy bear hat a try.  All three projects were knit on size 8 straight needles in Red Heart Soft yarn (worsted).  The cord for the booties and mitts is made from scraps of light brown yarn in a sport weight.

For the hat I used the Sweet Baby Hat pattern from the Red Heart website.  The pattern for the ears can be downloaded from Ravelry here.

Next, I made the booties using this pattern from Bev's Country Cottage.  The only change I made to the pattern was not changing from a main color to white at the top (although you could if you wanted to).

Finally I knit up the mitts.  They really do knit up quick!  I sort of used this pattern from Ravelry, but I made a few alterations. The pattern did not include any kind of cord or drawstring but I really wanted to add one so that it would be easy to cinch around baby's wrist and also to match the booties.  To do this all I did was copy the eyelet row from the booties and substitute it for the first row of stockinette in the pattern.  After the eyelet row, I purled the next row and continued along in stockinette as usual.  I crocheted about a foot of chain for each mitt to thread through the eyelet row.

This whole project was so much fun to make, and relatively quick as well.  You could knit it up in black to make a black bear or in white to make a polar bear.  You could add more detail by embroidering eyes, a nose, and a mouth on the hat.  You could embroider little lines on the mitts and booties to make them look like paws.  The possibilities are nearly endless!

~Colleen