I have yet to experience what seems to be the joy of having a grandchild, but fortunately for me, I have lots of friends who are willing to let me share in their joy, and crochet for what is now “the next generation.”

Inspired by a number of crochet “cupcake” baby hats, I used Sarah Zimmerman’s free crochet cupcake hat pattern as a jumping off point for my current front burner project — a crochet hat for a new arrival. Using a 5.0 mm hook and some Red Heart baby pink yarn that I had around the house, I crocheted the top or “frosting” of the cupcake.

I altered the pattern just a bit, increasing from 45 stitches to 48 in the 6th round with three, evenly distributed increases, and then I continued without any further increases in rounds 7, 8, and 9.

For Round 10, I went with a 7 dc shell, then I had to crochet Round 11, which presented it’s own challenges.

The first challenge was “what color should I use?”

For reasons I don’t understand, many of the crochet cupcake hats switch to some brown color for the “paper” part of the cupcake hat. I felt no such compunction, and since when I had asked what colors the newly minted grandmother had said “pink,” I dove into my stash and decided that the Red Heart pretty ‘n pink provided the best contrast, and while my decision to go with the 7 dc shells hides the second pink more than a 5 dc shell would have, I was very pleased with the result:

So pleased, that I continued on my merry crochet way crocheting the earflaps and the ties.

Soon, tt was all done but weaving in the ends:

Which I did.

Here is the side view:

And here is a front view:

I was so pleased with the “if Amelia Earhart wore a crochet cupcake hat” air that this hat had, I decided to leave it as is without a cherry or sprinkles on top.

One thing about crocheting for newborn is this: they outgrow everything rather quickly, so while my friend’s grand daughter probably won’t get to wear this all that many times, I will be ready with my crochet hooks and yarn stash to make whatever is next.