A little me time.

I haven't posted here in a while because I haven't made a hat in at least a month now. As of now I did my good deed and although I am going to continue donating the hats, I want a little me time now. So I still crochet, but I'm working on a blanket for myself and to hopefully make more of for Christmas presents. Yes, I do feel guilty about not making the hats but I am making a big thing, a blanket that I will keep for a long time.I promise I'll make more hats after I finish the blanket but I'm still working on the blanket. Possibly in the future, I will get another blog up and running just for donation stuff for the hats since I could use a little help with that. Yarn does add up over time, you know.

Box is empty

I am rather happy to report that as of two Friday's ago, the white box that I keep the once growing hat collection in is gone. Yes, gone. I brought them to the hospital and I got this sense of relief and good deed. The pattern I was using, was unfortunatly too big for a small preemie baby, like the micro preemies. However, I was even MORE happy, here is why: The hospital I donate to is the only one in the area that takes care of the really sick babies and therefore has a special place for them. Now, these babies are not all necessecerely preemies, they are just sick. Holdeni is the place and I am a graduate and am happy to be giving back to my first home. Although they're not preemies sick babies can lose weight very easily if they are cold and need to maintain their body temperature, so my nice warm hats are helping. If they use their calories on something like keeping warm, they're not using the calories to repair what needs to be healed which is the goal of being in the hospital; to get better and eventually go home. I did donate the blanket for a special girl. I was told that the smaller hats I made were perfect size and that just amazes me. Those hats fit in the palm of my hand. They are stretchy so I feel better giving them knowing that. But it also makes me feel bad though that these babies are so small and what I considered small before is huge to them. I wouldn't what parents feeling that nothing fits their baby, that would make me feel horrible. When I'm a bit older I will be able to actually give the hats to the babies but that might take a while seeing that 50 seems to be my magic number. The woman I talk with at the hospital said that the hat load would last the unit a long time and that she hasn't seen a teenager knit hats before for preemies, but hey thats me. I totally know what its like later in life dealing with challenges these babies might face. I think that just because you look a bit different and you have something that makes you unique, doesn't mean its bad. Most things that "normal" kids make fun of is actually life saving and no doctor did it just because. It's actually something I can get worked up about because its one thing to be curious and I understand that, its another thing to assume that because someone looks different they are mean or you don't want to be their friend. I have more in common with these babies than many classmates because we all have a mutual understanding of things and that others don't see the scars as beauty marks or anything to have pride in. But I understand and thats why these babies are so special to me and why I make the hats. I don't do it to be goody goody or anything glamorous, I do it because I know exactly who these hats will help and I hope one day all the Holden grads will give back, like I did to a place that gave the ultimate thing to them; their life.

Sorry its been so long!

Hey, long time no post. Seems like I'm just getting the hang of this bloggin' stuff. Busy with school during the weekdays(and some weekends) and knitting on weekends. I am proud to say I finished a blanket! Crocheted it with just SC's(my favorite stitch because its the only one I can do...) a cute bubblegum pink and cream striped blanket. Happy to say that I will be donating hats and blanket to the hospital on Friday. Oh it feels so good to look at that box filling up. Nice. There is probably someone out there who will want to lecture me(besides my Mom) about crocheting for hours on end, I do mean HOURS. My wrists hurt and my fingers cramp up but its addictive. So I stayed up until 11:00 on Friday and Saturday nights to finish that blanket. Amazingly it only took about three days to complete due to crocheting from sun up to sun down, but it got done. It is my first blanket and I have had some confusion about if I should donate it or not, I mean its my first blanket but if I were to make a blanket for me, it would not use baby yarn. I am not a baby, I am a nearly grown woman. I think I should donate it because its just nice to do and its too small for me although it does cover from my feet to my waist, I'm 5'3. When I get older, and have artheritis in my wrists and hands, I suprisingly would not trade it for anything. I wouldn't trade it because I am doing something that maybe a baby will like someday. I look at a baby blanket that my grandma gave me years ago and I love it. I hope that these babies will look up at the top shelf of their closets some day and see a hat or a blanket I made them. I may not know who these babies are but they're just like me when I was their age, little babies who are sick or who just came out early.

My adventures

This week, I had onlt two full days of school due to another grade taking standardized tests which gave 90% of my classmates extra sleep; but not me. Suprisingly I was up at only a little past my normal time and I bet you can guess what I did! I went out to another city to go "explore" their craft stores. Same ones, Michael's, and Joann's but bigger! This Joann's I love! this place has two floors, their selection on paper crafting is not the best but they have an entire floor for sewing, knitting, crocheting. I loved looking around but sadly, they only had $2 off the yarn I like, although they had every color. So I went across the parking lot to the Michael's where I found Caron one pound yarn which I got 50% off and some clearence yarn. This is the first time I ever bought clearence yarn and it was very disappointing. I bought two skeins for I think $5, good deal. So I drive the 20 miles home, put on pajamas, make a cup of tea, take out the yarn bags and open my clearence skeins to find that the one is in knots and it was almost like a purse where both ends were deep in the skein, I couldn't pull from anywhere. Although the other one worked, I had to return them because I really need two skeins or two colors to work on a hat. But I was quite satisfied with the pound of love. Then I went to a Big Lots today that just opened by my house and they had...YARN all kinds of Lion Brand which makes me a very happy girl! So I got these two Boucle skeins, $1.50 each! yes, they were small and I made a hat out of them tonight and they probably won't last for another one. But I got to try Boucle. They had the chenile, suede and fun yarn there too but I resisted that urge to back a U-Haul up to the shelf and load up. I was a good girl today. Something to keep in mind, Big Lots has good prices but watch those tags! I looked a skein of chenile, really soft big skein (not pound of love big, but big) and I saw the same kind of yarn in a different color that said $1.50 so I assume this skein is that price. Bring them up to the register thinking I have $6.00 worth of yarn (4 skeins) when really I have $12! You have to look at those tags. So that's my life lesson. Now as for hat count, I have 34 as of tonight and I am done making hats for tonight. Making headway with hat count

Workout!

Hi again, it's me. Yesterday afternoon I got a chance to sit down and knit two more hats, one for a little girl and a little boy and they both turned out so cute! I used new yarn I got last week from Michael's I bought a green, blue and cream baby yarn, Lion Brand pound of love and I have got to say that I need two yarn bags now. My yarn bags are just cheap tote bags weighing in at about 3 pounds each, so that is about right, I have 6 skiens of pound of love. I bought the skeins to see how economical they are, I like the yarn itself and I have already made 20 hats and the skeins don't even look like I have touched them! I got all the colors that the craft store had except for the yellow, which is a big no-no for preemies, it makes them look even sicker. I hope to get a little knitting done tonight after homework and studying but if I don't I will probably do it over the weekend.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog, I am Nana AKA Marly from my other stamping blog. I have my one blog, marlystamps.blogspot.com because I make cards for women with Breast Cancer and I occasionally enter challenges where I have to post pictures onto my blog then make a link so that's why that blog exists. Now I have this one because I am making hats for preemie babies at a local hospital. I have been calling around to hospitals for the past few weeks to see if they would accept the hats I have to donate. And after many calls, and many messages later, I called one and they would love the hats I have to donate.
I am in no way a Nana to any child and I probably won't be for several decades. I am a high school student who Knifty Knits and makes cards in her free time. I just thought that Nana's hat box makes a darn good name for a blog and I am a Nana at heart. Yep, I spend my weekends on my couch with a cup of tea surrounded with balls of pound of love baby yarn and I like it that way. I so far have a box filled with 18 hats to donate which makes me grin each time I add another hat to the box.