Happy Monday + Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Good morning! I hope you had a wonderful weekend – there was much celebrating and relaxing and family fun for us. I’m feeling refreshed (and significantly healthier) and wanted to kick off this week with a cute little outfit I made. The colors made me think of Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle’s “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?” – the follow-up to the classic “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”

She didn’t like the heather grey socks, so we switched socks. Picky, picky…

I had so much fun re-purposing the grey raindrops dress, I started hunting around to see if there was anything else unused that I could transform into a wearable item. Enter my beloved, yet woefully shrunken Madewell polka dot sweatshirt from a few years ago. It was always a little snug, but with every wash, it kept getting scandalously tighter and midriff baring. I chopped a few inches here and there, dug through my stash of zippers, added elastic to the wrist bands, and a few minutes later I had a sweet and comfy knit top for for K. Check it out:

Let’s talk about the über cute hat, shall we? I used the bear hat pattern from the Oliver + S book, which is fantastic. Her instructions and patterns are so well-constructed and clear, it came together in a snap. I made mine with fleece instead of wool and velveteen, and made ties out of the fleece as well instead of using ribbons. The color scheme is almost identical to the version in the book, which is something I rarely do but I really liked the white/blue combo.

And oh, the aqua cords! They are from the same pattern as the grey almost skinnies, though I made these slightly slimmer. I. Love. Them. So bright and happy and the perfect antidote to the thundering rain that we’ve been having. A good way to start the week, I’d say.