Sunday, June 3, 2007

Preemie Beanies

I've never knit a hat this small before! It would fit a doll ... but in this case, a very live one. A co-worker of my husband's became a grandma this week to a 3lb. 11 oz. little girl named 'Emma'. She was several weeks premature and her lungs haven't fully developed yet, so she's going to be in hospital for a little while yet. Thankfully, a knitting pal of mine had just given me a pattern for a "Preemie Beanie", which she found in her March 2007 issue of Creative Knitting Magazine, so I got right down to it. It came in three sizes: 27-31 weeks, 31-34 weeks and 34-36 weeks. I made one each of the first 2 sizes and will follow up with the third at a later date. Below is the smallest size -- it literally fit in the palm of my hand!

Here, you'll see it sitting on top of a bottle of Weldbond glue ...

And below, on top of the self healing mat grid on my work table, so you can see the actual scale ... less than 4" x 4"!
As Emma grows, she'll need another hat, so on the left side below is the medium size, joining the smaller on the right.

The one on the left used up about a 1/3 ball remnant I had in my stash of Cascade Fixation, and the one on the right used slightly less than that of the Elann Espirit (also from my stash). When Emma's ready for the largest size, I'll have enough of the remaining Espirit to knit a pair of socks to go along with another larger beanie.

2 comments:

Romi said...

OMGosh! They're so tiny! It's got to be so tough not to be able to take your baby home. What a nice gift for them.

mames said...

oh, tiny preemie hats, how i wish i had that pattern when my boys were born. they were not too tiny, but the hats i made for their layette came down to their necks. i am thinking of your friend's lil one, it is scary to have them early but now the medical teams are so amazing...they do wonders for our little preemie people. best wishes and smiles.