this summer, baby dude is old enough to ride in a bike trailer (hooray!) so he also needs a well-fitting helmet. it can’t be too tight because that would make him uncomfortable (i.e. sad and screamy). it can’t be too loose because then it will fall down over his eyes as we bump on down the road and then he will be uncomfortable (and sad and screamy). so we took some time to fit him properly about a month ago and found that it was almost impossible to get the helmet to fit tightly enough. it was close, but just not quite right. until mr. happy stuff put a knit stocking hat onto baby dude’s head and then put the helmet on top of that. success! except that now that it’s warmer outside, we have doubts that he’ll be willing to don a wool hat under his helmet. so with much slapdashery, i managed to come up with this (toddlers are really hard to photograph without blur!):
it was originally based on the sweet pea pilot cap by sew liberated, but i got ahead of myself and didn’t actually read the instructions until i had all the pieces already cut out and realized then that i was supposed to do some extra steps before and while cutting it out. oops. plus, i’d already decided to make it with two thicknesses of t-shirt material to get it to the right thickness to make the helmet fit and that wasn’t part of the pattern either. but i decided to forge ahead anyway. i got the three main pieces sewn together and tried it on baby dude and mr. happy stuff worried that the ear-flap parts would make it hard for baby dude to hear us talking to him. and i worried that the extra bulk of another chin strap would be irritating. so i cut those flaps off and added a hat band (made from the neck of a turtleneck).
it’s not perfect, but it is reversible (the other side is solid green with the same blue central section) and i think that it will serve it’s purpose until his head gets big enough to wear the helmet on his own.
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