Baby Hat A Day 2015

For a very long time, I knit baby hats on repeat. I donated them to the hospital the entire time I was pregnant with Lou, I sold them in my Etsy shop (which is now on hiatus), and I made them for just about every person I know who had a new baby.

And then I had Lou, and I set down my needles almost completely for about six months. When I began to pick them back up again in earnest this past fall, I found myself knitting hats of all shapes and sizes, but for some reason those adorable newborn beanies just weren't making their way off my needles.

Enter a one leftover bit of Deborah Norville Everyday Worsted (seen in the hat above) and a plan I didn't think about for more than five seconds. I love using this yarn to make baby hats, as it does all the heavy lifting for you. Each hat ends up just a bit different, thanks to the self-patterning nature of the yarn, and because it's acrylic I can donate without worry!

For the past few days I've been working up baby hats - the first two with the leftover bits of the first skein, and now the one full skein I have in my stash of Deborah's amazing yarn.

My plan is to make one baby hat every day, or as close to that as I can get. Sometimes life gets in the way, of course, but if I can get a hat off the needles most days, the project will be a success! I was planning on using stash yarn for this, but as I watch the hats form from this gorgeous yarn, I'm wondering if I don't want to make them all from this self-patterning gorgeousness?! We shall see what my wallet says about that. Thankfully, baby hats use up such a small amount of a skein, I won't be hitting the yarn store too hard ...

I plan to share each hat on Instagram (hastag #babyhats2015) of course, and then will show up once a month with a round-up of the hats that made it off my needles that month. This means, look for an update in early February with all the January hats featured!

A few folks have asked if they can join in, and of course my answer is YES! Share your baby hats with the hashtag, and donate them to your local hospital! Between this project and making as many hats as I can for Syrian Refugees, I'm hoping to make several hundred hats this year, a new personal best for me and a great way to get myself closer to my goal of 10,000 hats for 10,000 people!