Friday, September 25, 2009

500 Tiny Hats for Infant Mortality Awareness!

I spoke to Claudia Booker of DC Birthing Hands on Wednesday to find out how the hat project is going. She was leaving one birth and was on her way to another, but she told me that she has received 500 hats so far. She did mention that many of them were far too big for the tiny newborns whose heads are often the size of an orange, so she is going to donate the bigger hats to the local childrens hospital.

Here are the hats that I have completed so far:



You all were so generous in knitting up these little hats to warm the heads of our tiniest neighbors. I plan to continue to knit these hats because she is giving them to the new mothers when their babies are born.

I want to thank everyone who participated in the contest. When we figure out who the winner is, I will post it here.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Infant Mortality Awareness Project Update

I've been talking up the contest to encourage my readers to knit up a bunch of baby caps for the 'Heads Up on Infant Mortality' project. The goal of this project is to raise awareness about the high infant mortality rate in this country. The hats will be presented at a special event and there will be one hat for each newborn who died last year. The caps will then be donated to new moms for their new babies.

Two generous Ravelers, Michelle and Katharine have kicked in with a generous donation of two skeins of everyone's favorite Cascade 220 in purple and pink, and a skein of recycled silk. Here is a picture from the color card:


I have knit ten baby caps so far and my friend Claire has crocheted ten caps, but she is not participating in the contest. I just want to remind everyone that the project deadline is looming. The hats need to be delivered to Birthing Hands of DC by Friday, September 18th, so if you are working on some hats and want to take part in the contest, please send them in and let me know how many you made.