One Ring

It's not officially fall but the weather turned the last week of August. We've had much cooler weather and even a couple of days of rain. I'm grateful that we're in Michigan, because at least we don't need to worry about getting hit with a category five hurricane this week. My Facebook feed is flooded back to school photos, so you know summer is over for sure.

I took advantage of the drive out to the in-laws for a Labor Day BBQ to finish up a couple more hats. They're all different sizes because I was experimenting with adding and subtracting rows in order to get the required size and I think I've finally got it figured out. So far my group has made almost 40 of these hats! I'm going to wait until I have several more done and weave all the ends in at the same time, probably during a movie night.

My stitchy bug abandoned me recently and I couldn't resist a new start to bring it back online. Pattern and fabric were in stash, so I honestly already consider this a WIP. It's how I sleep at night. The pattern is Lord of the Rings Wreath by Mandarinks Design on Etsy, fabric is Picture this Plus in 18 count Mystic.

A word of caution about patterns from Mandarinks: they have the same symbols for half cross and full cross, but you get two patterns. One with just full cross and one with half cross and back stitching included.

Happy Stitching All!

Purple Hats for ClickforBabies.org

Click for Babies is an organization that distributes purple hats to hospitals. These hats are then given to parents of newborns, to remind them that the colicky crying that may persist for several hours a day is perfectly normal and will end. This is called the Period of PURPLE Crying.

For more information on the Period of PURPLE Crying, please read the information on this website:

What is the Period of PURPLE Crying?

The goal of this charity is to reduce the number of serious injuries and deaths from shaken baby by supporting and educating parents.

This charity was brought to my attention by a friend who is running my LOTR stitchy group on Facebook. For the duration of September, we're attempting to make as many purple hats as possible to send to Click for Babies. Several dozen have already been made for donation by those intrepid knitters and crocheters who started a week or two ago.

Today, I threw in with them, taking advantage of the weekend to pop out for a coffee with pattern and yarn in hand.

Click for Babies has an excellent list of parameters for making hats. They can be found here: Crafting Guidelines for Purple Hats.

If you are interested if sending hats to Click for Babies, I used the Parker Hat pattern by Sewrella in the 0-3 months size, with Red Heart Baby Hugs yarn and a 6 mm hook. It came out to almost exactly 14" in circumference, with 5" from dome to edge, so I will be adding another round or two to the end to meet the 6" requirement.

A couple of things to note is that the hats MUST be soft and need to include either gender-neutral or both girl- and boy-friendly colors and styles. I'll be doing several with green, yellow, or blue brims.

This is a charity that speaks to my heart,  as my husband frequently handles cases where infants under a year old have been killed by chronic abuse or shaking. A common "defense" is the complaint that the baby would not stop crying. Please consider taking some time to make and send a few hats.