Last week I pulled out all of the chemo hats that I had made on the Sentro knitting machine during the month to get them ready for donation. It wasn’t hard work at all; I just needed to tie off the ends, weave them in, stuff the hats into bags, and then complete a label for each hat. Piece of cake.
Here’s the deal. All of these hats were made from yarn that has been lurking in my stash for years. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t call my yarn room a stash… it is more like a carefully curated collection of treasured yarn acquisitions. Yarn that was the extra skein for a sweater I knitted. (Have you ever knitted a sweater? You always buy that extra skein!!) Yarn that was bought for a fade that didn’t quite work out. Yarn that I bought because… did you see that color!!! Yarn that I bought as a greatly used staple color (AKA purple or grey). As I finished off each hat, I remembered the name of the yarn, sometimes the colorway, what the yarn was made of, where I had acquired it, and the project that I had meant to use it for… hat by hat, I was filled with the memories of past outings with friends, knitted projects, and various hopes and dreams of the yarny variety. So many memories, now made into chemo hats.
See that green hat? I used that green yarn to make my knitworthy niece the Mando mitts. Actually, my niece wanted the mitts so badly she bought the green yarn and had it shipped to me. Look at how cute those mitts are!!! I bought that hot pink multicolored yarn while on an outing with friends to yarn shops up in Loveland and Ft. Collins in Colorado. We ate lunch together out on the patio of a yarn shop with an attached restaurant: best day ever!!
The yarn for these two hats was leftover skeins from two sweaters. The rose-colored yarn came from Western Sky Knits, and I bought it up in Estes Park at the wool market there one June; I used that yarn to make Rannuculus. The darker rose yarn was bought at my local yarn store one February as their “yarn of the month”; I used that yarn to make a VNeck Boxy sweater that winter.
The blue yarn is named “Cloud Atlas”, and I just loved it! I made some Geology Socks from the yarn, and I’m pretty sure I made some fingerless mitts also. The purple is called “Empower Purple”, and I bought it because… well… don’t you feel empowered just looking at that yarn? I hope that the two hats that I eventually made from the skein will make their recipients feel dang empowered!!
It took most of the afternoon to get the hats all finished and bagged. All that yarn and all those memories, carefully finished, bagged, and tagged. Last Saturday I handed them into Frayed Knots, and eventually they will make their way to one of the infusion or cancer centers in the Denver/Aurora area here in Colorado.
May all of their new memories be good ones.
Note from Midnight Knitter:
It was a crazy end to the day as I finished up with the hats. There was an owl calling as the sun set and twilight arrived: when I took a small break to go water outside, I could see him sitting on top of my neighbor’s chimney silhouetted against the dusk sky. Between hoots from the owl, I could hear huge transports from the nearby Space Force base passing over my house as they clawed their way into the sky right after takeoff. It was kind of a surreal experience between the avalanche of memories, the owl calling in the dusk, and the roar of planes in the dark.
Do you see how low that plane is? I took this picture earlier in the summer, and you can see why it is hard to get a shot. The planes are so low I can’t see them until they are right over my yard! I’m pretty sure these are C-130 Hercules. That owl is a great horned owl, and I think that he and his friends are responsible for the recent decline in the bunny population in my neighborbood.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Amazing to see so many hats and hear some of their yarn stories. When you take them do you tell them the yarn name and colour and link your blog?
No, I just hand them over to Frayed Knots and they take care of the delivery. There is an insert that explains that the hat (or item) is a gift created at the knitter’s own cost and includes fiber content and care information. There is also a link and email information to Frayed Knots which is how I sometimes get feedback when people email a thank you back about an item I made.
So many squishy beanies and a somewhat surreal end of the day… I hope they will comfort people going through hard times. It is very sweet of you to make these donations. A cousin of mine is undergoing chemio and just started losing his hair – so sad. I mnetioned him to wear a beanie… maybe i should make some.
How are you these days?
Well, I have this huge yarn stash and I want to put it to good use while I can. I think that a lot of the people who take the hats wear them around the house and while sleeping, so mine are made of superwash merino which I have found is nice and soft while warm and wicking.
I am feeling pretty good this week and getting stuff done. I had a run-in with a virus and the fatigue monster a couple of weeks ago, but things are better now.
You’re a champeen, Marilyn ! – what do the people at the collection centre say when your astounding donation piles arrive ???
I s’pose it’s a bit miz to have to part with items from your carefully curated cornucopia; but the use the finished articles will bring to so many people – well, you must be chuffed, deep down. 🙂
I have never seen an owl. Down here we specialise in mopokes: “The Southern Boobook, often referred to as a ‘mopoke’ after its call, is Australia’s smallest owl.” Then there’s https://blog.nature.org/2020/05/04/meet-the-frogmouth-australias-weirdest-bird/ the gorgeous tawny frogmouth, which isn’t an owl at all. So you can be confident that I know nothing whatsoever about owls – or, as adherents of A.A. Milne are wont to say, wols.
How’s your health, lamb ?
There are so many hats coming in we just pour mine into a huge bag and off they go! The group has a goal of 1,000 hats this year, and we are on pace while also producing blankets, dish cloths, and lots of other things too. The best feedback I got was when I went into an infusion center (for an infusion) and told them that I was one of their knitters. There was cheering!! They were so obviously appreciative that it completely made my day!!
I caught a virus and the fatigue monster has been messing with me for a couple of weeks, but this week I’m finally off oxygen again and doing much better. I brought all of my plants in from the deck and everything!
If you’ve never seen an owl, you have really missed out. These guys are huge, have a really booming hoot, and when they fly, they are silent. The wingspan is really something… like, over 4 feet. It really can startle you if you see one coming down the street at you… poor bunnies never hear them coming.
Excellent memory prompts
I don’t know which amazes me more, your amazing quantity of hats or your memory of all those different yarns and all the wonderful places where you got them. I love the purple too but for me a great teal will always take top billing. So far anyway. Sometimes it’s a toss-up. I guess it depends. I’d never buy a purple car; I loved my teal car.
Yarn shop with attached restaurant … perfect!
I just got a beautiful teal yarn from Malibrigo that I am going to make into fingerless mitts for rheumatology patients at Kaiser. It is sad how well I remember the yarns; I think it is because I have a strong visual memory. These yarns all are Indie dyed, so each skein has a story. The Malabrigo is from kettle dyed yarn from Peru, uses South American wool, and the company is supportive of women. Cool, right?
Yes, indeed. I’m sure if I were gathering something I loved from a variety of places, I’d remember all the details, too. Those details are as much a part of the item as the item itself.
That’s a lot of hats! I’m sure they will make many memories with their new owners.
And the owl is lovely! Though it’s sad for a decline in the bunny population, if it is due to the owl at least it’s just the circle of life.
In truth, the bunny population has exploded so much over the summer that I wasn’t surprised to see the arrival of the owl. Hopefully, nature will get things a little more balanced again.
That makes sense! Nature does tend to balance itself out when it can.
That sounds like an emotional but fulfilling day. You are very generous to use up so much yarn for chemo hats, and I know they will be so appreciated! I also love little moments like you had there – seeing and hearing your local owl and watching the plane going by. Those C-130s are LOUD! My office in Anchorage was close to the local Air Force base, and some days they must have been practicing takeoffs and landings because they would be circling the city all day.
I have all that yarn in the stash, and I am on a mission now to get it put to good use!! The C-130s are really something! As you said, they are loud, and it seems like they are just clawing their way up into the sky as they take off. I wondered if mine were practicing take offs and landings as there were so many on the day that I took the picture, but then it happened again one night. I think that there a lot of planes involved in some shipments.
I learned how to make fingerless mitts with a simple thumb hole on my smaller knitting maching and when I contacted Kaiser rheumatology to see they would like them I got an immediate… Yes, please!!… response from them. Yay! Another good use for the yarn.
That is just awesome!