Beanies for Preemies

The Redmond High School students nominate 10 senior boys to compete in the Mr. RHS pageant. The boy's mission is to raise money for the St. Charles Hospital NICU (Last year they raised $10,000!). They put on this great evening event in May - like a beauty pageant - the boys do "Talent", modeling, answer questions, walk with thier mom's - the works and it is so fun to see these guys strutting thier stuff!

While I was knitting these socks I said the yarn would be so cute for a baby - one thing led to another and I'm knitting Beanies for Preemies for the Mr. RHS project. (Just finished the socks so don't have a hat in this yarn to show).

Some of the girls in the leadership class that also works on this project, are crocheters and a few knitters ....and M3 daughter volunteered that I knit too - so here I am. The girls are going to create hats for the babies and I am also. M3 daughter also mentioned that I have blogging friends - so this is where you come in.

I will send a STR in the colorway Fairgrounds to the name I draw for every preemie hat sent to me by April 15th. I would really like to send a lot of hats - The above I knit in an evening. The NICU is such an important service that our local hospital provides. My oldest spent a week there - he was 7 weeks early - a healthy young man now. I was so appreciative of the facility - and this is a little way I can say thanks.

This is a good way to use small bits of left over washable yarn - sock yarn works - hat should be about 12-13" around or so. I cast on 90 stitches of Cascade Fixation - 1/2" of ribbing for a total of 4 1/2" before the decreases. Simple and quick and I know it will be appreciated. I used way less than a full ball - I have another so I'm thinking two balls of this will make at least three hats. I'm also doing one with the leftover STR from the above socks - aren't they cute! Will post picture soon (Although there is trial and error going on with this one - you'll see the results soon). I'll post some links for patterns also.

Thanks to all the potential Beanies for Preemies participants. This is a good cause for our littlest wonders!