Keepin' ya in kippahs

I love my son's preschool. We have 3 kids and we've moved around a bit, so we've seen a few. And of all the many preschools we've had dealings with, this one is far and away the most haimish while still being organized and a "tight ship".

But the one thing they aren't all that good at is keeping track of personal belongings. I sewed a blanket for my daughter's nap-time there. They lost it. I sewed a blanket for my son's nap-time--they lost it. And then one day my son came home without his kippah. It happens to be a special kippah - the one we gave him at his upsherin (1st haircutting). But it's gone, and probably for good. I have to say, I was sad.

My son read my sadness. He decided he didn't want to wear kippot to school any more, in case he lost them. After I got over my mope, I realized this was not the message I wanted to send. But at $15 - $25 a pop, I didn't want to have to buy kippahs for him all the time and this place just doesn't place a high priority on personal belongings. So I went to sew him one.

There is a pattern you can buy for kippahs, but I don't own it and I didn't feel like wasting the time with the mail-order process. (I'm sure it's a good pattern though, it's a good company.) And I saw a few patterns available on the web. So I downloaded the most sensible looking pattern and whipped it up.

The arc of the wedge was all wrong. I wound up with a nice little cap that would maaaaybe fit on the head of an American Girl doll. Feh. So I had to redraft the curve. After a few tries I got a nice fit for an almost-4-year-old's head. And then I decided that since I went this far I might as well draft one for my husband. You can't really just scale up - but after drafting the 1st one I knew where the curve had to be and I got it right in 2 tries, so it wasn't a lot of effort.

These take almost no time to whip up, and barely any fabric. They have a nice curve to them - not too high (dorky) and not too flat (unprofessional looking). The boys now want to match - easy to do! The pattern is on the front page of my website in pdf form and here's a photo of the boys wearing the test kippot below:

So now there's a tested kippah pattern out there for quilting cottons. Have at it, sewing yiddishekeit!