How the #^&* do I block a tiny hat?

So as you all know I finished my Vine Lace Baby Hat for Abigail. I love it on her and she did get to wear it once before it got wwaaaaayyyy to hot for wool. But it still needed to be blocked. The delay was I couldn't figure out how. I have a little styrafoam head for blocking grown up size hats but I wasn't sure about the little heads. I saw Roxy at the Lamb's Ear and she had a brilliant idea - use a balloon. I thought, great I'll get some balloons and give it a try, however it later occured to me that this hat has little scallops that will need to be pulled into submission and that usually needs pins. Pins and balloons don't really mix. I decided it didn't really matter since it was too hot to wear and I could deal with it later. The next afternoon we were at the grocery store and I spotted melons and cantelope in all kinds of sizes and the light went off. So I measured Abby's head (yes I do carry a tape measure around, why do you ask?) and picked a melon that was close in size. So I was able to stick my pins in and now I'll have a snack for later.

She is a pretty cute little melon in that hat isn't she? Now I just need to wash the melon juice off of my pins and I am good to go. I have not put it on her to see how it looks since with the weather at this point I think that could be considered child endangerment.

Oh and have I mentioned my 8 month old is climbing the stairs now? She crawled for like 5 days before she was over it and wanted to stand. Once she figured that out (about a day, maybe 2) she wanted to go go go and started cruising along the furniture (time to lower the crib mattress). Now she is not only getting up to standing but wants to climb things - like the tv stand etc. The last few days the stairs were a fun thing for her when she could get to them (baby gates ususally up) She would get up a step and then slide back down but this morning I had one of those heart stopping moments - Abby was set down next to her brother to play I leave the room long enough to grab a grahm cracker (this takes less than 10 seconds) and Jakes says "Abby on a stairs" (she was no where near the stairs when I set her down). I run around the corner and sure enough, there she is, on the 4th step. A misstep at that height could be very dangerous for her little body. So I climbed up and sat behind her so she could continue to have her fun. She made it up 9 steps before turning around and reaching out for mommy. Needless to say the baby gates are up now no matter what.