Stranger knits baby a beanie during newborn’s first flight

‘It was beyond kind and such a shock,’ baby’s mother says about gesture

One stranger has proved the importance of kindness.

Kelly Levine, who uses the username @kellyryan49, took to TikTok to share the story of how successful her baby’s first flight was, as a stranger sitting near her five-month-old daughter, Romey, ended up knitting her a beanie.

“The coolest thing happened on our baby’s first flight,” text across the screen started the video. “The woman next to us noticed Romey loved to watch her knit.”

“She secretly worked on knitting Romey a beanie by the time we landed,” the video continued with text across the screen. Levine then took the opportunity to promote the stranger’s business in order to “pay it forward”.

“Her name is Meegan and has a small business called @crochetobey on Instagram,” she wrote on the screen.

“Good people are the best,” the mother captioned the clip.

Since the video was posted on Sunday 7 January, it has received over seven million views, with many people commenting on how sweet they thought the interaction was.

“Nope but this picture needs to be printed and added in her baby book along with the flight ticket because this is too cute,” one comment read.

Another commenter agreed, writing: “I’m a firm believer that babies/children bring out the best in us, if we allow it. How sweet.”

“She’s too precious for this world, I pray life continues to treat her like the special soul she is!” a third commenter pointed out.

In an interview with People, both Kelly and her husband revealed that they had actually recognised Meegan during the flight because she was also on their previous flight, and they got to talking after noticing how obsessed Romey was with watching her knit.

“She was just staring at her blatantly and amazed at how fast her hands were moving,” she told the outlet. “It entertained her for hours of the flight, just kind of observing her. She was just so kind. She had said how good Romey was and how beautiful she was.”

Kelly recalled Meegan was knitting whatever project she was working on in a very fast manner, but never expected it to be gifted to them.

When the plane landed, Kelly says Meegan turned to her and said simply: “Okay, I’m done.” Rubin handed her a yellow, knit hat just big enough for Romey. “I just couldn’t help myself. She’s so good,”  Kelly said the knitter told her of her reasoning for the gift.

“Turns out she had whipped up and crocheted this beanie for Romey in the last maybe two hours of the flight, unbeknownst to us,” Kelly explained. “It was beyond kind and such a shock. Everyone around us stood up and noticed just this beautiful encounter with a stranger. It was just an unbelievable kind of moment.”

Kelly mentioned how concerned she was leading up to the trip because this was her daughter’s first flight ever, on top of her being a nervous flier herself. “It’s just nerve-wracking going into a flight,” she explained.

“You don’t know who you’re going to be sitting next to, if they’re going to be annoyed if the baby acts up, or if the baby starts to need me to get up or walk around the plane. All those things go through your head as a parent.”

She continued: “And so when you don’t have any of that, but you also have a woman who is so nice and out of the kindness of her own heart, definitely put me and my husband’s nerves to rest. It’s also definitely let me be more open to traveling with my baby in the future.”