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Warm Up America Seeks Tiny Hats for Africa

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knit tiny hats for premature babies in AfricaWarm Up America is known for providing blankets and other warm goods to people across the United States, but it supports other initiatives as well, and this year it’s helping bring awareness — and hats! — to the issue of preterm birth, especially in Africa.

The group is seeking tiny hats for the East African Preterm Birth Initiative, and aims to have 1,117 hats to donate by World Prematurity Day (which is 11/17, thus the number).

More than one million preterm babies worldwide die in their first month of life, often because of an inability to keep warm. Hats are vital to protect these precious bundles, and, as a bonus, are really easy to make because they are so small.

Warm Up America is asking for hats to fit 3 or 4 pound babies, with head circumferences ranging from 10 to 12.5 inches. There are patterns on the website linked above to get you started.

Hats should be mailed by Nov. 5 to:

Warm Up America!
ATTN: Tiny Hat Campaign
3740 N. Josey Lane, Suite 102
Carrollton, TX 75007

The East African Preterm Birth Initiative is a project of the University of California, San Francisco, and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Hats will be collected at their conference on World Prematurity Day and distributed to newborn healthcare facilities in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.

This is such a great project and an easy way to help little ones. Because my daughter was born six weeks early I always want to do what I can to help preemies, so I will definitely be contributing to this campaign and I hope you will, too, if it moves you.

[Photo: Warm Up America.]

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Comments

  1. Thanks for posting this. I have some soft acrylic that will be perfect for these hats. Someone gave it to me, and I was wondering what to do with it!

  2. On the site you linked, there are instructions for knit and crochet hats. Also on that site is a “Learn more here” link, which is to a PDF file which has different instructions! The needle sizes in the PDF seem more reasonable to me. For example, the main site suggests size 10 for worsted weight; the PDF suggests size 7.

Have you read?

Add a Little Lace to Your Knitting Patterns

If you’re new to lace knitting or just aren’t sure how to incorporate the technique into garments, check out these tops and sweaters that use lace as a decorative element.

The easiest lace out there is eyelets, and you can practice them plenty with this eyelet covered sweater from Knitcro Addict. It uses light/DK weight yarn and is worked in four pieces knit flat. It’s intended to be a little cropped and a little oversized, and includes sizes XS to XXL in the pattern.

If you’re in parts of the world where it’s getting colder as you read this, the Nora sweater from Bummbul might be a good choice. This is actually a great one for learning lace because it’s worked in super bulky yarn, which makes it easier to see what you’re doing and makes the lace super graphic. This one just comes in one size, with a 42 inch (106) cm bust, but that could fit a variety of people depending on how much ease you like.

Minimi Knit Design has a cute allover lace cardigan worked in one piece from the bottom up. It’s worked in lace weight mohair held double, which maybe isn’t the best for those new to lace (because it can be hard to rip out) but it sure is pretty. Sizes range to fit from 30 to 66 inches/76 to 168 cm bust measurements.

If you’d rather not have lace all over your sweater, you can knit the Lumi sweater from Originally Lovely, which has a chevron lace pattern on the yoke and is otherwise worked in reverse stockinette stitch. (It’s worked inside out so you don’t have to purl every stitch.) The pattern has 9 sizes from XS to 5XL and uses worsted weight yarn.

Or try the super romantic sookie blouse from Trust the mojo (available on Ravelry). This sweet top is started working flat from the bottom up and has a V-neck and I-cord edgings. The sleeves are worked separately in the round, and the pieces are all joined together to work in one piece to finish off the top. It comes in eight sizes and is available in English and French.

You can also pair lacy sleeves with an otherwise plain top, like on the Starflower Wrap from Annelise Driscoll Gingrow. This intermediate pattern makes a wrap sweater with generous lacy sleeves and a double wrap belt. The pattern has nine sizes, from XS to 5XL, and is available for free from Hobbi.