Operation Preemie!

So two weeks ago I was thinking about what I could do with my crochet skills for charity or some kind of donation, since I have SO MUCH stash yarn that’s just sitting there doing nothing (extra skeins from projects, random yarn people gave me that I can’t do anything with, etc). The first thing that came to mind was making baby hats for the hospitals NicU. I spent 2.5 months in the NicU as a newborn because I was 2.5 months early, same with my sister she was 2 months early. We’re proud preemie baby-adults now but we know what a struggle it was for my parents to go through 2 sill births then having to have your newborns in the hospital for the first bit of their lives.

So I talked to my friend Rachel who volunteers at the hospital to see who I had to talk to to get this hats donated. I hadn’t started crocheting anything yet because I wanted to make sure there was a need for them first. She said to just give them to her since she volunteers in that ward and that preemie hats are the ones that are most needed right now, that a group of ladies does the regular newborn hats already. Perfect! I started that day! I’m up to 29 hats right now and I plan on getting as many done by my birthday (July 23) as possible. I might also make a few blankets and angel gowns (for stillborn & miscarried babies), although I’m not sure, depends on how much yarn I have left over after I have a significant number of hats done.

I went through my stash and came up with a rubber maid tub full of yarn. I still have TONS of yarn left in my stash but I didn’t want to use up project yarn unless I had to. I’m always willing to buy more yarn 😛 so it’s not really an issue for me. I will probably have to buy the baby soft yarn from Red heart or Bernat but that’s fine. There’s always sales at Michaels and these hats are going to a good place. The angel gowns will use a different weight of yarn (hats are using worsted), so I’ll definitely have to buy yarn for those if I get to making them.

I put it out on my Facebook that I’m willing to accept any stash yarn leftovers people have, but so far no donations. I don’t need the donated yarn, I just wanted to put it out there in case anyone had some. I’m just looking for worsted weight for the hats and DK/Fingering weight for the gowns. I probably will only make 10-20 gowns, depending on the pattern I find to use and how easy it is.

Here are the hats I’ve done so far: