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Welcome to Ashley Leither Designs, home of The Lizzie Bear Project. 
The official launch of the project began January 2017 but it has been in the works since I was snuggling my little Elizabeth aka Lizzie Bear during her 23 day NICU stay. My goal with the project is to make hats for the babies who are going to have a stay whether its for just a little bit or a long time in the NICU where Elizabeth was born. When you have a baby, you don't think they will need to spend anytime in the NICU, at least I didn't plan on it and the hardest part was when I was discharged on day 3 and she spent an additional 20 days there.
When she was in the NICU, I was constantly back and forth to the hospital. During the week, I dropped my older girls off at school at 7:05 am, then went straight to hospital to get there about 7:40 am, so I could get close parking. Then I was there until about 1:30pm, then I went to my older girls school to pick them up, then we did our afternoon/nightly routine and then on about half the nights, I went back up to the hospital for her 9:00pm feeding. When I wasn't there, I would call about an hour after her latest feeding to see how it went and sometimes I even got up in the middle of the night to call the NICU just to check on her. Some days I have no idea how I went nonstop going back and forth.
Elizabeth is turning 6 months old in February, so that is the goal for our first trip to make a donation of hats and they will all have little bear ears on them, making them Lizzie Bear Hats! As I make a beanie, I will create a blog post letting you know how it was made. I have over 200 patterns in my pattern store, so I will be using a lot of my own patterns. I will also be sharing photos of the journey and our donation days. 
We would be honored if you would make hats too and donate them to your donation place of choice. I have many plans to expand our project, I will keep you updated and hope you will join in with us!! 
(Elizabeth says, Happy New Year)
~Ashley
