More about hats...in Kathy's own words from a Knittalker

My email from Kathy regarding Hats
Thu Aug 19, 2010 5:08 am (PDT)

Hello everyone,

Below is a copy of an email that Kathy sent to me regarding her hats.

Pam

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Hi, Pam!


I don't really use a pattern much any more. I cast on 70 or 80 stitches in worsted weight yarn and make the pattern up as I go along. Oh, I'll use a chart from one of my books sometimes ... the Dancing Granny one, or some fair isle one. I never make the same hat twice. I vary them by colors, stripes, ridges, lace work (simple lace like YO K2TOG across, then a row of plain, then K2TOG YO across, varying the hole placement), various pom poms, I-Cords and things at the top ... things like that.

I started "Hats for Army Brats" several years ago when my daughter's husband was stationed in Germany and she was a kindergarten aide in the American grade school there. For two years my friends and I made enough hats for every American Army Brat. I've attached a picture of some of them.

Now I am making all 120 hats myself. This is something I wanted to do for a long time. Daughter now teaches K-5 art classes at elementary schools in Clay Center, Kansas. I found that too often, friends who "helped" me meet the quantity goals for hats for Army brats had the mind-set that charity work doesn't have to be pretty, original, child-friendly, etc. They felt that as long as they used up some old scrap of yarn, made a PLAIN, PLAIN hat and gave it to me that it would be appreciated and loved. Not so! I cannot tell you how many hats I dumped into the garbage because they looked trashy. I figure if I wouldn't make my kid wear it, it wasn't worthy for some needy child. Actually, the hats for Army brats were not for "needy" children. Those hats were a gift and a thank you to children whose dads were deployed so much that the kid hardly knew their own father.


May I respectfully ask you that if you knit for charity ... it doesn't look like it's for charity? Thank you so much, Pam!


Enjoy making them. You may never know who has a hat you made, but you'll always know if you made a really nice one for some small child. Colorful, bright, something they'd pick out if you took them shopping.

Kathy/Mom/Bedstemor in Kenosha, Wisconsin USA


NEEDLEWORK FOREVER!!! HOUSEWORK WHENEVER. bedstemor@hotmail.com