Stitching for warmth

 

Caps, caps, and more caps. Or maybe you call them hats. Either way these will all keep some kids a bit warmer this winter. I make these all year long from yarn that is donated to me, or what I can find on clearance for the cheapest price. Then in the fall I take them to the Goodwill Industries office in Sioux City where they will be handed out to the kids along with new shoes, socks, mittens and scarves at their annual Christmas Shoe Party.

 

 

This is what I did this year, from last October until early summer. Usually I work on them continually, but I ran out of yarn for awhile, then got started on other projects that needed to be done. The table top is covered with stacks of 5 caps each. There is a total of 124. 75 are striped, 40 are solid colors, and there are 9 that really don't fit either of those categories very well.

 

This picture looking down on them shows the various stripes and colors, at least of the caps on the top of the stacks. I use every scrap I can, even ones that don't quite finish a row.

 

This is one that does not fit the regular categories. It is made with black as the base, using all black for the ribbing band at the bottom. The bright pink is that fun fur yarn added to the black, so that I am knitting with both strands at the same time. Cute?

Don't you love my 'model'? I used to have a styrofoam head used for wigs but that was discarded several years ago. So the best thing I could think of is a round metal mixing bowl sitting on top of the overturned Rubbermaid container. :o)

 

As I said before, I use ever scrap. This is made using two strands of different colored sport or baby yarn to get the tweedy effect. That gives the cap more weight and warmth than a single strand of the lighter weight yarns. And, the fringe is leftover fun fur yarn.

 

And here is the very tail end of that fun fur. The cap is made from a specialty yarn as well. It sort of looks like chenille when it is made up. It was some that was given to me and I have tried to find some more like that but wonder if it has been discontinued some time ago. I don't recall the name of it, but it wasn't called chenille.

 

This is how some of the variegated yarns can turn out when mixed with coordinating solids. The dark is actually a real dark grey but it looks more blue in the picture. The cap below is also the same variegated but with the light grey. I love working with the variegated yarns to see what kinds of patterns it can turn into.

 

I will be dropping these off on October 23 when I go to Sioux City for my annual mammogram. And if they still have some free yarn left, I will get a bag full to start for next year. Their auxiliary buys large lots of yarn for such distributing, and it sure helps me out.