Preemie Hat Drive & Contest

Twelve years ago on August 10th, my twin daughters were born. They spent the first month of their lives in the FAHC Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. To celebrate their upcoming 12th birthday, Kaleidoscope Yarns is having a Preemie Hat Drive & Contest! We’ll be giving out coupons for each hat donated and will also be awarding 8 different prizes. The deadline for this contest is September 30th (Friday). Here are the details:

HAT SPECS (Please pay close attention):

Size: Hats must be sized properly for preemies or newborn babies. Please find a pattern or follow the stitch count of a tested pattern. Hats that are not long enough and too wide may look cute but they will not stay on any baby’s head. Please don’t “wing it”! There are hundreds of free preemie hat patterns, and we’ve found that many of them are not sized properly. Here is a Kyarns free pattern for a preemie hat with three size options. Use ours as a guideline. You can also follow a newborn hat pattern because not all babies that stay in the NICU are this small!

Materials: Yarn must be a soft, washable blend. Please do not use any scratchy yarns. Higher quality baby yarns are preferred, such as Berroco Comfort DK and Plymouth Dreambaby DK. If a hat is scratchy, we cannot give it to the NICU. If you have a yarn you would like to use and you’re not sure if it’s a good match for a sensitive preemie’s head, please bring it in and ask us! 

Design: Be creative! All hats submitted will be voted on (and prizes awarded) before we donate them to the NICU. Make it cute, make it fun, make it funny, make it colorful, but above all, make it soft and make it fit!

Drop Off: Please get us your hats by Friday, September 30th. We’ll need your name and contact information (phone number or email) in case your hat wins a prize.

Prizes: Prizes will be awarded for Cutest Girl’s Hat, Cutest Boy’s Hat, Most Colorful Hat, Best Designed Hat, Funniest Hat, Most Professionally Finished Hat, Best Twin Set (2 hats!), and Best Either/Or (either boy or girl!). And for each hat you drop off, you'll get a coupon for 15% off one item in the shop.

NEED YARN?

We’ve got plenty. Come into the shop and buy a ball of Dreambaby DK or Comfort DK and get one ½ off. Second ball must be the same yarn in a different shade. Limit of 2 discounted balls per customer.

We have a pretty good supply of partial skeins on sale in the shop, and they’re cheap! These are great for colorwork so please come into the shop to see them. (These are already discounted and are not part of the promo above)

LOCAL vs INTERNET

This contest is designed for locals, simply because the discount on Dreambaby DK and Comfort DK we are offering is handled at the register in our shop. There's no easy way for us to make this automatic with our website. 

However, if ANY of our internet customers would like to send us a preemie hat or two, PLEASE DO! We will happily keep a "15% off one item" coupon (per hat) on file for you, and we can arrange to use that on a future order. Also, all hats we receive, from both near and far, will be eligible for judging in the contest. 

So cast on! Let's see how creative everybody can be!