“Lent is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday.” Wikipedia
The big thing with Lent is that most people give up something, but as I prepared for 2020 Lent I couldn’t think of something to give up. I wasn’t eating a ton of sweets and I hadn’t been super active on my social media and the act of giving up something to me always meant it should be a sacrifice of some kind. As I was focalizing this to some ladies at a craft day (before covid hit) several had said another option was to volunteer or give back in some way. This had my wheels turning!!!!
What I decided on was what become an adventure in baby hat crocheting! Also a lesson that while we think of Lent as 40 days in reality it’s 46 days. Sunday’s aren’t counted because they represent a mini-Easter themselves. For the sake of my project though I committed to the full 46 days.
So for 46 days I made a baby hat every night to donate to our local hospital and my church! During this time I tried out several different patterns and I’ll share a few links to my favorite patterns. Some patterns I made one and that was it, others worked up so well I changed yarn colors and made several! Or the pattern featured some alternate options and so I was able to make several hats with just a simple variation to the original pattern which was nice too.
One thing I learned while on the journey is that you definitely can chose any yarn you want, but know that this could greatly affect the size of the baby hat!!! So the pattern could say toddler, but if you use a thinner size 4 yarn it’ll be more of a newborn size. Since I was doing this to donate it was fine that I have all different sizes, but if you want these for a specific size I would pay attention to the recommended yarn and hook sizes. Which is lesson number 2, hook size matters too, and if you crochet tighter definitely go ahead and go up a hook size from the pattern directions too.
Along my hat making journey a sweet friend asked me to share the daily hat pictures with her. This helped hold me accountable and gave her something to look forward to nightly. Thankfully, she’s a night owl because a few busy nights I wouldn’t get the hat done until late. My cousin also jumped on the nightly text update journey, which was nice and brought us closer together too. She even put in color and style requests for hats which was fun giving me inspiration for more hat ideas. This made my project not only a way I could give back to a local hospital, but a way to bond with two very special people in my life as well.
Some of the hat patterns I used were this cute Striped beanie, and the Little Textures hat had cute bobbles along the last few rows. I tried the Baby bear hat once and for me it didn’t work up quickly, but it was cute. This Flapper girl hat was adorable with or without the added ribbon it has a cute ruffled edge along the bottom! My favorite pattern ended up being this Vintage Vibes baby beanie pattern, it actually had several variations, worked up quickly and you could add color changes to also make a variation!!! I had a few patterns printed I’d gotten from other sources I used as well, so I had lots to chose from during this time. A few were just simple hdc hats that worked up quick and I used variegated yarn to add contrast easily.
During this journey there were definitely some days I didn’t “feel like” getting my hat for the day done, but that’s also the purpose of Lent to remember the struggles and sacrifices of Jesus. So I would sit down and get it done anyways! This year I haven’t decided on a project yet as I do want to give back somehow as part of Lent, but I also plan to give up candy this year as this lock down has had me snacking on sweets way more. I’m considering possibly doing a weekly project or weekly cause to help throughout Lent this year, or possibly a bigger project that is for a good cause!
Whatever you chose for Lent make it count! Don’t give into the temptation of giving up on your sacrifice during the Lenten Season it’ll make you stronger knowing you can stick to it.
