Soft hats

Last week at the Shawl Ministry get together we were asked if we'd like to expand our work again. We started with simple shawls, then were asked if we'd like to make a white shawl for each baby that's baptized at the church. Now we've been asked if we could crochet some soft hats for people undergoing chemotherapy. Several people said yes, if they had the pattern. But, there was no pattern, only a sample hat. So, I said I could write up the pattern. I counted stitches & rows & scribbled down a quick pattern. Over the weekend I went to several stores trying to find a soft yarn similar to the sample. I brought home a skein of Red Heart Soft. Red Heart put out a soft yarn a few years ago, this is new,...much softer! I also selected a skein of Lion brand Microspun. This is also very soft. The Microspun tends to split a little more, but both work up very nicely. I made one hat in Red Heart baby blue with one row of Fun Fur - blue, pink, purple. Then one in Microspun cream with a Fun Fur of blue, cream and brown. I wrote up the pattern and sent it out to the rest of the group. Tonight I made 2 more blue hats. The last one I was going to run out of blue before finishing, so I put in a row of cream alternating front post doubles and half doubles; then a row of blue dc; then another row of the cream in pattern; then a blue dc, ch 1, skip 1 pattern. I finished with the cream making little shells of single, half double, double, half double, single. Very cute.