Friday, January 11, 2013

More Chemo hats!

Here are bunch more chemo hats, making a total of 84 donated chemo hats for 2012!  I will try to include links back to the patterns where I can, but I mostly use ravelry.

Here are most of my hats donated in 2012, in my ravelry projects folder.

Here are 42 hats, just donated yesterday! 




Here are the hats with the scarf ties...  I hit up charity shops and friends and family for the scarf donations... PATTERN HERE







The Soft Seed Stitch Hat


Two Slouchy Hats
(sorry, I don't remember where I got the pattern)





The Shallow Seas Beanie



Hat with(out) a Bow



Fourth Avenue Slouchy Hat



Puff Stitch hat
(Very loosely based on THIS PATTERN)





Classy Cloche




Candy Puffs Beanie





10 Skater Beanies




The Durango Hat
(note that the pattern link goes back to the web archive, with no pictures. for pictures, I would try the ravelry page.)




Seed Stitch Chemo Hat
no pattern




Miscellaneous Chemo Sleep Caps with different edgings













Sarah Arnold's Divine Hat



Slouchy Diagonal Chemo Cap




Chemo Cap
I think this is my favorite - though it looks a bit misshapen here, it's not, really.  Fits great!
PATTERN HERE



Now I am off to start the 2013 caps!  I think this year I will shoot for 100 donated hats... 




Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Correctly Sizing Hats


I have received a few questions about how I size the chemo hats, so I thought I would write it out here.  I have accumulated notes from all over the web, none of these ideas are unique to me!  But hopefully having them all consolidated in one area will help. SKIP TO THE BOLDED AREA IF YOU ARE JUST WANTING THE NUMBERS. 


There is no way to say "make x rounds" to get the right sized hat.  There is so much variance, with stitch height, hook used, yarn used, and the actual gauge that one crochets - there are no hard and fast numbers. So I measure across the hat, in inches.  This makes it consistent, regardless of the variables listed above.

Hats are generally made in 2 sections.  First are the increasing rounds at the crown of the hat.  Second are the rounds of the hat that fill out the body, or the height, of the hat. I use the guidelines on Bev’s Country Cottage site for the measurements.

Women’s head circumference:  20”-22” and a hat height of 11”
Men’s head circumference: 22”-24” and a hat height of 11”-11.5”

I try to make a variety of sizes, in the ranges listed above.  When in doubt, I lean towards the smaller sizes to help account for the missing hair of the average chemo patient.

I start my hat with increasing rounds, and continue until it measures the correct diameter as below.  (Circumference divided by 3.14 (pi) equals the diameter is the actual math used, but I just follow the numbers below.) Regardless of the stitch used, it should measure to the diameter listed below. 

To measure the diameter, I take my tape measure and stretch it from edge to edge of the increased circle, across the middle.



SO, HERE ARE THE MEASUREMENTS I USE FOR HATS:

20” circumference hat needs a diameter of approximately 6.25” across  (20/3.14 = 6.37”)
21” circumference hat needs a diameter of approximately 6.5” across (21/3.14 = 6.69”)
22” circumference hat needs a diameter of approximately 6.75” across (22/3.14 = 7.00”)
23” circumference hat needs a diameter of approximately 7.25” across  (23/3.14 = 7.32”)
24” circumference hat needs a diameter of  approximately 7.50” across (24/3.14 = 7.64”)

Once I have the correctly sized circle for the crown of the hat, I start working on the body of the hat. In most common patterns, this means just to continue rounds, without increasing, until the desired length of hat  is reached, usually 11”-11.5”.  Don’t forget to take in account any border or finishing edges you want to put in the hat – this needs to be counted in the length as well.

(This is about as clear as mud.  I am sorry.  Just measure your hat from edge to edge to figure out when to stop increasing, using the numbers above and you should have the correctly sized hat.  If in doubt, lean towards the smaller size, since hats generally have a good amount of stretch to them.)

Please let me know how this works for you!! 

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Some fun stuff...

I made the head scarves for my daughter who is 11.  The bird and the owl are magnets, because we are in desperate need of magnets that don't fall off the fridge every time you close the door!






Chemo Hats Set #2

More chemo hats done for the local cancer center!












And this is the first of the men's hats!