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The February before Henry was born, Megan gave us our first baby present. It was a newborn-sized romper with a matching hat. You can see them both in the picture below. We chose it as his "going-home from the hospital" outfit.

No one knew what an important item this hat would become in Henry's life. It essentially became his security blanket. There are two knots on top that he chewed on to get some relief from teething pain. As a result of almost two years worth of hardcore noshing, the hat's looking a little beat up.

Beat up is pretty generous. When you take away the glamour that the camera naturally adds, it's pretty disgusting. As you can tell from the picture, the seams at the ends of the knots are the only things that have survived, the fabric itself having surrendered ages ago. Also, the knots are kind of yellow. And brownish. And he still chews on them, so after a couple of nights, it smells pretty bad too. But he loves it, so what can I do?

I can make him a newer, better one that he'll love just as much! So I went over to Wal-mart (the only store that sells fabric within a forty minute drive), except they didn't have knitted cottons for sale by the yard. So instead I bought two 5T turtlenecks. I came up with some measurements based on his old hat, which still fits pretty well because it stretches out, and then I added a little room to grow. I even made a pattern with black contruction paper, so it would feel official.

I cut the pattern out and sewed the two sides together. I almost sewed it with the two wrong sides facing, but caught myself at the last minute. Boy, would that have been embarassing. After sewing it together using a straight seam, I decided I should probably reinforce it with a stronger stitch, so I went over the straight seam with a really tight zig-zag.

The final result, modeled by Henry himself:

Cute, right? He only wears it when he doesn't realize the hat I've put on him isn't his old one. Which I take as a compliment. However, there's no replacing an old friend, no matter how hard your mother tries to.