Questions! Answers! Another FO!

For everyone who is interested in knitting for preemies and has questions about your hospital's requirements, just give them a call. I am sure they will gladly give you the requirements for their particular needs. If you want to enter the contest leave a comment here.

Preemies have incredibly sensitive skin, so be sure yarn is not an animal fiber (possible allergies) and is nice and soft. Plymouth makes a great baby yarn which is super soft. I like the Sirdar I just used for the socks too. Caron and Bernina make several very soft inexpensive baby acrylics, which are available at craft stores and big box stores.

Our hospital doesn't require us to individually bag hats, socks or blankets, but some may. It would make it easier to distribute them, so it might just be a nice gesture.

My experience with washing the clothes PeeWee wore in the NICU is where I got my sterilizing guidelines. If you have questions or are not sure you can properly wash the items for whatever reason, check with your hospital, there will likely be other knitters who you can bring your knitting to for washing and delivering. If you don't have a hospital near you and want to send things this way, just get in touch and we can arrange it.

There are preemie patterns all over the internet if you need one. I'm writing down what I am doing as I knit up pieces and will post here what I have done. If you have a hat pattern, knit it with smaller baby yarn and needles and its a preemie hat. Even if your hat looks like it would fit a newborn or larger, there will eventually be a baby it will fit. I find preemie hats are great ways to try out new stitch patterns and techniques. And gauge just doesn't matter.

The best preemie things we used and which lasted us the longest were nice and stretchy, something to keep in mind. Again, thanks for all the support with this!

Even with a very busy week I managed to finish up my socks:



Koigu, no idea what the color is but I love it. I love these socks. Did I say I love these socks? Well, I do. I will wear them out. They are ankle socks, it's not the funny angle in the picture. When someone comes up with a way to take a picture of a sock which is flattering, will you pass it my way? I'd love to be able to do that...

A little motherly pride... I went to Big Brother's open house last night and discovered he's in several sophomore classes. I had no idea. I am very pleased about it, because his grades so far have been really good. A bit of a struggle with math the first few weeks, but his teacher said he's pulled himself out of that tailspin. (We have a great tutor lined up if we run into trouble.) I hope his excitement about school keeps up. I made it really clear if he wants to be able to do cool things like play gigs with his band (boy does he have a big one lined up, but I'm not saying it out loud so I don't jinx it) he has to keep the grades up. Keep your fingers crossed it works. I really don't want to have to be Mean Mommy and start saying no to him.