Fortuitous

About a week ago, I got an email saying that Charity Knit Nights at my LYS were starting up again! Hooray! The only downside to this is that they're every other Wednesday, which is the same time as Lettuce Knit stitch nights, so that means I'm back to only seeing the LK crowd once every two weeks.

But at any rate, our first project is to knit preemie hats. Naturally, I immediately hit up Ravelry for patterns, and found the NICU VitaCap, by Connie Carroll. This is a very handy little pattern, as the hat unbuttons and opens up. First of all, this makes it really easy to get the hat on the baby, since you just lie the hat flat, lie the baby on the hat, and then wrap it around the baby's head and button it up - easy-peasy. Second of all, this means that the hat can easily wrap around any wires or other attachments that the baby has to wear in the head area. And to top it all off, it's free!

The other terrific thing about the pattern is that it takes a fingering weight yarn, so all I had to do was find some super-soft sock yarn. And it just so happened that the very same day I got the charity-knit-nights-are-back-on email, Laura was kind enough to give me this:

It's GEM Starsock, from Green Eyed Monsters. Which, I was delighted to discover when I went hunting for website links, is actually made by the lovely (and clearly multitalented) Kate Heppell, editor of Knit Now, which just published my 'Stippling' pattern! (Small world, eh?) GEM Starsock is a 60% superwash merino/15% bamboo/15% nylon/10% silk blend. It feels so soft, and is so absolutely perfect for the preemie hat pattern, I can't get over it. Even the colour ("Luna") is perfect, as - assuming you're into gender-based colour coordination - it can be worn by girls and boys (it's turquoise with a fair bit of blue, some white, and some lavender). There's enough yardage in that cake to make three hats, very possibly four.

I can't wait to start tonight!