Mystery Hats

With Halloween just over two weeks away, I thought I should post the mystery hats. *cue lightning and thunder*

These hats were in a bag hanging on my office door. No note from the donor so no idea who these are from…at least I’m pretty sure it was this group. Things are starting to blur.

So many hats she didn’t know what to do…

We are hovering at 100 hats. I believe we’ve actually passed 100 hats, but I don’t have official counts from people. As wonderful as it would be to give The Mollie Wilmot Radiation Oncology Center in Saratoga 100 hats, we decided to spread the love around instead. This way other areas near us can benefit from our obsession.

That said, I’m tickled pink to annouce that 50 hats will go to The Mollie Wilmot Radiation Oncology Center  and 50 hats will go to the Cancer Care center at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, NY.  Since this project was inspired by my mom who died from lung cancer it was only fitting that the second hospital be inspired by another member’s mother who received chemo at Ellis.

In speaking with the lovely woman at Ellis Hospital, I found out how much these hats are often appreciated by patients. According to her, the patients have fun trying on hats for each other while deciding which to pick. The waiting room becomes very upbeat and energetic during this time and the gesture is truly appreciated.

Now, we want to do a knit for charity drive every year. Probably not chemo caps every year just to keep it interesting, but if we’re not doing it, why don’t you? Who is stopping you and your friends, coworkers, or Local Yarn Stores from doing a chemo cap campaign where you are? I’m sure even one hat will be appreciated if that is all you can do.

Expect another announcement if we get 150 hats. At that point, we will break off another 50 to another Hospital, so get knitting and crocheting!!!

Mini Monster’s Hats

Since I’m on the phone with Mini Monster (my sister), I thought I would post all her hats. Enjoy!

Let the love shine in…

I have been a bit ill my pretties and overwhelmed by hats. I have all the hats on my person (okay, more like in my house) and all the photos to take. Curses! But fear not. I am getting back into fighting style and hoping to get some photos (or potos as the fingers will it).

First, we have three hats dontated by a lovely lady from work. Yes, my work rocks. She actually did not make the hats herself. These hats were made for her when she underwent chemo. So she decided to pass the hats on to others. How cool is that? I say very. On to the hats…

tatt3r’s hats!

We received tatt3r’s hats (THANK YOU TATT3R!). Both are made with Microfiber which just rock’s the cazbah. Have you made anything with Microfiber before? No? Well you should. It feels delish. Photos behind the cut.

(Not So) Quick update

Today the knitting group met for the first time since starting Made by Hand. We  started our session by showing each other our hats, labelling said hats and being amazed by the response. Right now we have 84 finished hats. 84. Hats from us, coworkers, online bloggers from hundreds of miles away, and parents. It’s truly amazing. And yes I do think I say that a lot here. I also say cute and adorable a lot too. I have a very limited vocabulary and am getting off topic.

We are now shooting to get over 100 hats by Halloween. So if you are just finding us, send some hats our way if you have time and yarn to spare. Email us at madebyhand0(at)gmail(dot)com and we’ll provide a mailing address. That’s a zero in madebyhand0, byt the way.
Since the outpouring has been so great, the group has pretty much decided to split the hats into two groups and send one group to The Mollie Wilmot Radiation Oncology Center in Saratoga, New York as orginally stated, and then send the other group to another cancer center in the area. I won’t say which one until I speak to the person there, but it’s there hospital where a knitting group member’s mother had chemo. At least I think that’s what we decided. I often reject other’s reality and replace it with my own unintentionally, so if I’m wrong someone please correct me.

And as a final note. The group has decided that we will be doing another obsession-based donation again next year. It probably won’t be chemo caps this time around and we have some really great ideas of what we want to do. The 2007 project will be for a longer duration, possibly May to Halloween, but we’ll post info here as soon as we sort it out. If you have any ideas for donations, feel free to leave a comment or email. I can’t guarantee we’ll do it but we’d love to hear about it anyway!