guest post: the Hat-tember project

 Hey lovelies, I have a beautiful thing for you to be a part of this September! Hat-tember is an amazing project that one of my first blog friends and supporters is giving her whole heart to. She knits these amazing hats that are for sale in her shop (currently closed for how hard she's been working!) and you can see some of her work here. Anyways friends, get involved and help her dreams in this project come true! Here's Robyn!
-------------------------------------------- Back towards the beginning of August my friend Joel over at The Blog Of Impossible Things introduced a crazy new project he’s undertaking - he’s challenged his vast community of readers to help him raise $25k for Pencils Of Promise by the end of 2012! Reading through his post regarding the impossible challenge, I began to get excited. Not only is Joel raising a world-changing amount of money ($25k will build a school in Guatemala AND proved quality education for 1,000 kids!) he’schallenging readers to undertake impossible goals. I immediately knew two things – first that I was going to help out, and second what my impossible project would be.

 For the last few months, I’ve been knitting faster and faster, producing quite a large number of hats for charity. It’s been so amazing to see just how many hats I can actually get off the needles, but I’ve missed the challenge aspect I had with the One Hundred Hats project I finished two years ago.  Quietly I’ve wondered if I could complete a “hat a day” project - knit or crochet one hat every single day for one full month. I’ve been excited about the idea, but quite scared at the amount of time and dedication something like this would mean. And then Joel challenged his readers to do impossible things for the sake of getting some kids a decent education. Sold. During the month of September, I am crocheting a hat a day!I’ll be donating the hats to the Chicago Food Pantry, and will be asking folks to sponsor the hats as a way to raise money for Pencils Of Promise.
Hat-tember 2012 will be epic to be sure! 

 The basics of this challenge are simple enough - using one crochet pattern, my stash yarn, and a lot of determination, I’m crocheting up and sharing on the blog one hat each day in September.  Each hat is sized to fit a teenager through adult so I can wear it for photos,and I’ve enlisted Zach (my amazing husband) to help me take photos as much as possible.

 On top of sharing each hat that I make, each day’s hat will be available for sponsorship - this is my way of raising money for Pencils Of Promise. As I share each hat on my blog She Makes Hats, there is also the option to sponsor the hat for just $25 - the cost of a year of education for a child!  I’m just about a week into my project, and I couldn’t be more pumped … I’m on track with my hats and folks have already donated over $200! There is still alot of crocheting to be done in September, but I’m confident that if I continue on with the pace I’ve currently set for myself, I’ll sail into the 30thwith 30 hats crocheted and $750 raised to help send kids to school for a year!