Pixie Worx! Crochet Talk and Pixie Thoughts

While on my latest trip, I was asked to help teach 3 young girls how to crochet simple “preemie hats” for a charity project in their area.  It was a fairly simple task, however I’d never been asked to make hats for preemies before.  Generally when I get involved “crocheted-ly” in a charity project, it’s been for children going through chemo.  So I learned a few things regarding the needs for preemies-related handcraft.

 Initially, the one basic bit of “requirement” guidance I received (3rd hand), as to what the hospital wanted, was to make a hat for about the size of a doll…… 

Ah hmmmm….  Well now…

Unless you have a good frame of reference, this guidance alone may seem confusing.  As, after all, dolls come in various sizes -  so just what does that mean?  But the truth is, so do preemies. 

Preemies can burn a lot of calories to keep their bodies warm.  Something we don’t want, because then those calories are not there to aid them in gaining weight, etc..   So the need to keep little preemie heads covered, and save those calories to help them thrive, is great.  NICUs can also go through a lot of hats as, once one has been dropped on the floor or the like, it cannot be put back on the baby.  The parents are allowed to keep it, wash it at home or whatever, but it cannot be put back on the baby while still hospitalized.  Needs for multiple sized hats are also high because they get outgrown pretty quickly.  An 8 to 12″ circumference seems to be a good place to start for most preemie hats.  But there are needs for preemie sizes even smaller.

After consulting with some of my crochet peers and researching the subject a little, here are a few more details that stood out as significant, most specifically for charities within the US. 

 1.  Most US hospitals require “no natural fibers.”  Preemies are born with their immune systems already fighting, so hospitals want to avoid all possibilities of allergies before they start.  Also, fuzzier fibers are not allowed at all where oxygen is present, to avoid all static risks.  So acrylic fibers only. 

However there are other countries that do prefer wool as that’s something they are more used to than we tend to be in the US anyway.  And a few charities up north request soft wool for warmth.  There’s also the issue that your donated wool hats may also become history with a toss into the washer or when sterilized.  Care tags are not helpful as hospitals will remove all tags before using with the babies.    Check with your charity for specifics on their fiber requirements.  Otherwise, stick to non-static acrylic yarns.

2.  Make sure the fibers are soft.  Believe it or not, I actually saw a hat made for a preemie out of old scratchy yarn scraps.  And had to say something about it too.  Because it’s important that they be soft to the most sensitive skin you have - realizing that a preemie (or any baby) is going to be even more skin sensitive than you.  When taking on such a charity project, please consider your fibers and don’t skimp.  Many hospitals are reluctant to say too much on some of these details because they are afraid people will stop donating and they don’t want to discourage the well-meaning.  So nip it in the bud and consider it now before you get started and your donation doesn’t become one of the ones that simply can’t be used.

3.  A lot of hospitals require that the hats *not* be laundered.  Though I found some places where people do pre-wash them in Dreft or something else baby appropriate, I also found that many hospitals prefer this not to be the case, due to concerns of allergies and soap exposure, etc..  Preemies have unique medical concerns and needs.  Of course, then again, you can make a case for gee, why wouldn’t you launder the hat!  Unfortunately, when it comes to preemie hats, you are creating something that has the potential to expose an under-developed baby to foreign things, whether chemical in nature due to soap or environmental in nature because you own a pet or crochet around your kids, etc..  Either case can be a potential issue, so I’m not sure there’s an absolute answer here, except to follow your hospital’s requirements. 

4.  Consider making hats with a fold down flap or a hole in the top for tubes and scanning equipment, etc..  This makes it much more comfortable for the baby and easier on hospital staff so they don’t have to remove the hats constantly. 

5.  Avoid pom-poms and yarns that shed.  These are typical avoids for any baby hat, but certainly for preemies.  Pom-poms are one of the most nightmarish of choking hazards, because as one emergency worker put it to me, the fuzziness makes it near impossible to dislodge from the throat.  The fibers just tend to “stick.”  Yarns that shed easily can also be breathed or swallowed.  Either way, they can get inside a baby, and that’s something no one wants. 

6. Donations must be from a smoke free home/environment and made from new fibers.  That old stuff you might have pulled out of Grandma’s attic unfortunately won’t do. 

7.  Consider checking with your hospital/charity of choice as to whether they have greater need for preemie hats or newborn NICU hats.  Some hospitals receive a ton of preemie hats but their newborn nurseries run low. 

Here are some additional websites that offer very helpful preemie-hat related info:

 (Be sure to read!)  Some very potent and detailed insight about preemie clothing from a nurse!  http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/preemie-clothing-tips.html

A list of suggested yarns here: http://www.thepreemieproject.com/volunteer/yarn_list

Preemie growth charts:  http://www.babylinq.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=107

Lots of crochet Preemie patterns links listed here: http://home.inreach.com/marthac/preem.html

Patterns for charity here: http://www.p2designs.com/Links-CharityPatterns.htm

These sources and information should give you a good frame of reference to get you started in your own fiber-related preemie charity efforts.  However, as we sadly know that many preemies don’t make it, another consideration for fiber related charity work might be via bereavement needs.  Charities like Emmazing Grace specialize in serving families who have experienced the loss of an infant.  You can find them at:  http://www.emmazinggracefoundation.org/index.html

Here you’ll find a list of patterns for bereavement items:  http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/bereavement-gowns.html

Here’s a list of hospitals in need: http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/peds.html

Hopefully this information will help you in your quest towards charity projects such as these.  If you found this info helpful to you, please let me know! 

Copyright © 2008  by Julia Meek Chambers, all rights reserved.

Hubby and I busted out laughing in the truck earlier this evening. Someone driving in front of us appeared to be lost and stopped dead in the middle of the road, waving everyone to drive on past. As we skirted around them my daughter piped up and said, “Mommy, that car had Louisianna license plates! That’s the 4th car with foreign tags I’ve seen since we left the house…!”

Howling we were, I tell ya. How could we not! (No honey, Texas only seems that big…….. lol!)

That was almost as good as the time, when she was much much smaller, she assured me - “Don’t worry Mommy, I have everything under the Troll.”

Copyright © 2008  by Julia Meek Chambers, all rights reserved.

My grandfather died two weeks ago and my life has been in a whirlwind as I run back and forth in and out of state to be of help to my grandmother (88) who is fighting cancer.  So much of who I am is because of them, so I decided to honor Grandpa here with what I wrote and read for him at his funeral: 

Jack H. Meek was my grandfather. I grew up just down the street from his home. It is the perspective of a grandchild that I share with you and honor him with today.

It was a blessing for me to grow up with my grandparents right here at home. They were not some strangers, far away, who I didn’t really know or only saw once in awhile. They were a part of my life growing up. Though I’ve come to visit frequently since I left home for college, a few months ago I had the opportunity to come visit my grandparents alone and without children, for the first time in years.

Without the daily pressures and responsibilities of being a mother, it was easy to feel like a kid in their home again. I found myself chattering away freely with them, sharing my life’s aspirations and worries, just like the little girl who grew up down the street.

This trip was unique for me, as Grandpa and I had time to talk quite a bit. And it became obvious that he had some things he wanted to say.  Grandpa surprised me.  He tried to tell me that he had not been there as a grandfather enough for me growing up. That he too often had been too busy. He had been busy with work, busy with his church, busy with the things that demanded his attention in life. He believed he had not spent enough time with me and for that he was sorry.

I tried to argue with him. His presence in my life has been profound. His home has always been a home to come back to now that I’m grown. As I started out in life, uncertain and scared, there was always a safe place to visit and refresh. His presence acted as a solid part of my foundation and my development as an adult, as a student and as a professional. Not everyone is observant. Not everyone looks up to others. But I did look up to my grandfather.

I began to tell him what a difference his presence had made in my life and how important he was to me. And it’s because of him that I dared to break out on my own, to work for myself, start my own business and even help create a charity project for kids. He did so much in his life it seemed to me, and without pretense. And in watching, I knew I could too. But Grandpa just told me how much he loved me, was proud of me - encouraged me to forge on. He gathered me up in a hug, prayed over me and blessed me.

I decided to post this piece from my website to my blog:

“That’s that new-fangled yarn!” “You can’t see your stitches!” These are the phrases both my grandmothers have used to describe the micro-fibers and unusual yarns, from around the world, that I specialize in. I grinned of course, and replied right back, “But Grandma, if you really know how to crochet, you don’t need to see your stitches!” Lol! Well they had no argument there. But no matter - as far as they were concerned, too much time, to difficult to use and too different. Fine for me to use it, but even as seasoned crochet masters they would NOT.

It’s true. When I teach crochet, I never recommend what my grandmothers call “that new-fangled yarn!” It’s NOT very forgiving at all. And if you’re new to hooking (or knitting), it just is not the yarn to learn on. Mis-stitch and you’ll likely scrap the lot, if you’re not well skilled at handling a multitude of yarns and textures.

However, “That 70’s Yarn” as I call it, is the perfect learning yarn. As grandmother pointed out, you can easily see your stitches in “That 70’s Yarn.” It’s perfect for learning tension, stitch consistency and gauge. Practice makes perfect and “That 70’s Type Yarn” is the best to practice with. But for all practicality and end product use, I don’t like it for much else. Great for making spider webs and anything requiring a lot of structure and even durability in the rain!  But not great for the skin.

Super el-cheap-o “one pounder” yarn is far from what I ever use in my products for men or women. (Except, as I said, for spider webs.) And I refuse to use anything scratchy against the skin, even if it is “natural.” If it’s going to be against your skin, as a purse, blanket or article of clothing, it should be SOFT! No compromises! No passing scratchy stuff off as acceptable just because “it’s natural.” This is such an issue to me that when it comes to hats, I look at it this way: It should be soft enough against the skin to be comfortable to anyone going through chemotherapy. Think about it - when you’ve had hair and then suddenly don’t, your skin can be extremely sensitive to what you wear!

Crochet got a negative rep from 60’s and 70’s negative memories of crocheted vases and painful clothing some of us were forced to wear, along with a variety of marketing techniques targeted at various audiences. There are still people who hear the word “crochet” and the only thing they can visualize is unfortunately a very limited slice of the whole art! Not anymore! It’s my goal to help “make the case” for crochet and it’s potential to make a high quality and lovelier piece of work.  As well as promoting crochet as ART itself. Much of that funky yarn that traditionalists hate I love. If it’s not soft against the skin, I don’t use it against the skin. Which also means my tastes tend to be higher quality and more expensive.  I am admittedly, a yarn/(don’t forget chocolate)/crochet/hook SNOB.  All in good humor!

So, before you look and wonder, the proof of the difference is in the touch.
I dare you!

OK guys, we gotta talk holiday plans!  

No last minute orders this year!  Our anniversary is Xmas weekend and John is not serving overseas, so we are not missing it!   

To give my customers the best of customer service, I also limit the amount of custom orders per week.  So if you need something for a holiday gift, please plan ahead and get your order in now.  First ordered, first served. 

If you need to contact me after Xmas to get in a last minute order, you may place orders again on the 26th.  However, I will be going out of town to visit my sweet 88 year old Grandparents too.  So orders allowed between the 26th and Jan 7th will be very limited. 

So now you know and can plan!  In the mean time, hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season!

(sigh….) 
I am trying to post an update on the The Artist’s Market Blog information about our Gift Certificates!  Which is so cool!  Especially for the holiday season right now!  If you can’t figure out what to give someone and you really want it to be an awesome gift, what could be better than a gift certificate to a whole art market full of quality handmade art!  Talk about the COOLEST of gifts - complete with Austin flair! 

But for some reason, the blog is only allowing the title of my post to show up and none of the words I have written.  I’ve been at it for over an hour!   Grrr… 

So I am testing over here to see if the problem is only on the Market Admin Blog side, or on my personal blog too.  Argh!  As a writer - it’s just so frustrating!  Baughh!

So, here we go…. Testing 1-2-3……?

Well, as if I didn’t already have enough crushing deadlines to make as it is, I just took the plunge and decided to add one more thing to my plate.  www.NaNoWriMo.org.  National Novel Writing Month is held for the month of November and it’s all about cramming a novel output of  50,000 words into a month or less.  It’s also all about taking perfectionism out of the picture.  Quanitity, not quality.  There’s plenty of time for editing later.  Stop talking, get off your seat and JUST DO IT! 

 It’s not like I really believe I’ll make it to 50,000 words by November 30th.  I don’t even have a full month to accomplish this, like everyone else who prepared for this event/sprint all year!  (I can just imagine all these writing enthusiasts who’ve been training all year for this: getting their daily routines ready, menus planned for the entire month, freezer full of food packed tight, coffee stores are bursting at the seams, night lights - check, stack of pens and note pads by the bed - check, babysitting with Grandma set up - all ready to make it to the finish line this year!  Ha!)  But it’s fun to try and just weird enough to call it me.  My life has plenty of fodder, so it should be a great outlet for all this stress and work I’m pushing myself through right now.

Besides, I miss all my writing.  This could  be an opportunity to take one more step back towards freelancing.  Life is all about being bold and daring to do something that’s sometimes not so comfortable in order to learn or experience something new. 

Well, so that’s all great for philosophy and such, but let’s see how far I get!

Welcome to Localartmarket.com!  And welcome to the Pixie Worx! Blog.   Seems there was some trouble trying to get my page up but hopefully it’ll be easy enough for everyone to find and make sense of!  More photos and information can be found on my website at: www.PixieWorx.net. 

Pixie Worx! is partially a mother-daughter effort.  My daughter, who goes by Jack, is very talented with color and jewelry.  And she’s learning her crochet pretty well too!  I am a crochet fiber artist.  Most of my work is freeform.  I’ve been asked if I make patterns.  I do not.  Everything I sell, I’ve designed or redesigned the pattern.  When I say redesigned, I mean that I basically looked at one of the items Grandma used to make and freeformed something that looks sort of like it, but uses totally modern microfibers, exotic yarns from around the world, a mixture of various types of fibers and a totally new spontaneous look.