Memory Yarn

Over the years, I have received various donations of yarn. They were added to my "stash" from my own purchases and yarn I received from my grandmother. Although it's been awhile since I received any donations, for some reason, I usually remember who gave me which specific yarns. It wasn't something I tried to memorize but there was a special attachment I made mentally. Where the yarn came from isn't important to making the caps, I thought those of you that made donations might want to know that I remember and appreciate the donations again as I use the yarn.

Variegated Yarn

I've been meaning to type up my monthly post but as always happens at this time of year, the start of school has kept me both busy and exhausted. That doesn't mean I haven't crocheted but I haven't done much! However, I wanted to share a little bit about yarn in this post. Some of you that follow along on my blog crochet or knit but many of you don't and maybe don't know much about yarn. So, here is the lesson of the month :) Yarn has a variety of options including of course color. It can be made of acrylic, wool, cotton, bamboo, alpaca and many more options. It has different weights (thickness) depending on what it is made of and what is the usual expected use.  One interesting thing about yarn is that many forms of variegation (changing of colors) exist no matter what the material, weight, etc. These yarns mix colors in various ways and they create patterns naturally as you crochet (or knit) with the yarn. Here are 5 complete caps and one in progress, all using different variegated yarns. I've left the one incomplete so you can see what the yarn can look like in it's skein before use. Notice some make a striped pattern, others make a blocked pattern, others just have a slight tint change. I love working with variegated yarn because even without any fancy stitches or added embellishments, each cap is unique and colorful.

Cycle for Hope

Q's Caps for Cycle for Hope

Every August, I go out to west Texas for a bike ride. Specifically, the Cycle for Hope (https://www.cycleforhope.net/About) ride at the UMC & Texas Tech campuses in Lubbock. This ride raises funds for the Southwest Cancer Center which has supported my mother in law. It's a 7 mile loop that can be completed once, or multiple laps and then again later in the day for the "Hot Seat Ride" which surprisingly wasn't too hot this year. This past weekend, in additional to riding along with the family team which includes Eriq's parents and sister/brother in law and nephew, I made caps to donate to the cause. I was able to finish up 14 prior to leaving on the trip and another couple simple ones on the road to Lubbock. It's a special time to spend with family and it forces me to get back on my bike :) On a side note, I also finished a couple of blankets to donate to the Linus Project and was able to leave them as well. Those work up fairly quickly but I hadn't worked on any in awhile. It was nice to wrap up a few of those and I plan to finish up a couple more of those soon, it is HOT now but the time for caps and blankets will come quickly for those in need.

Car Caps

Little Caps

I tried my hand at something slightly different and made a handful of baby caps along with a few baby sized blankets. The caps work up very quickly but I found that it was hard to make them unique and change the pattern in such a small size. I was able to come up with a few changes, aside from just changing the yarn to create different looking caps. I made a few flowers and pom poms and got really good at the scallop edging. I also made the blankets in three different patterns. These caps and blankets were donated to a hospital a couple of weeks ago and are already in use :)

Travel days

Over the past week, we travelled from south central Texas to north central Kansas and back home to visit family. It was, as always, a wonderful time with family and especially so this year as we had all 22 of us (4 generations) together at the same time on multiple occasions. This also meant approximately 24 hours of driving time to and from our destination. Thankfully, I have a husband that is willing to drive most or all of the time. I don't much like driving and I do like to crochet. He drove all of this entire trip and that allowed me to get 18 caps made in the car. I made a few adult sizes and the remainder in child and baby sizes, as I'm working to finish off and send a box of baby sizes soon. It was great trip with wonderful family time and I was also productive while we were on the road. That's an all around good week on this front.

Shipping success

Medical Center Plano

Thanks to some helpful advice from friends and family, a couple of weeks ago, I finally figured out how to ship using Paypal. It allows me to print my own labels, saves a trip to the post office and even saves some money on postage. My first package using this service went to the surgical oncology floor at Medical center Plano in North Texas. The wonderful staff, including one of my former students, took this great picture modeling some of the caps they received.

Anniversary

Today marks 3 years since Eriq's passing, I guess that makes this the 3rd anniversary of Q's Caps. I'm traveling this weekend to celebrate a couple of family birthdays. Celebrating life is a great way to spend the time. Since I don't have to drive thanks to Kenny, I've been able to crochet while we are on the road. I plan to work on more on the trip home as well, but so far I have completed these 4 caps. I wanted to go ahead and share them with you today. I have a box nearly ready to ship when I get home and hopefully I can top it off with a few new ones before I get it to the post office.

Last day of school!

Last 2 weeks of school caps

Yes, today was the last day of school! If you're a student, you appreciate this day, if you're a parent, you're hearing all about this day but if you're a teacher...well, you KNOW. The last few days and weeks are so tiring, no matter what you do, it's just exhausting. This year, I set some goals for myself to get me through the last 2 weeks. One was to get 3 miles of walking in before the end of each school day, and still go for a walk or run most evenings and weekends. The second was to make at least one new cap for each day of the 2 weeks. That would give me somewhere around 70 miles and 14 caps at the end of the time frame. I achieved both of these goals every day and in fact ended with over 102 miles and 19 caps (and that's not counting tomorrow as the last day of the week!) You'll notice the caps come in a variety of sizes. I'm currently making caps for several hospitals that serve babies, children, teens and adults. It is a great way to use ALL my yarn, I can use the scraps for flowers and pom poms, the small to medium amounts of leftovers for baby sizes and then large quantities or full skeins for teen and adult sizes. I have to admit that I may take it a little easier on the walking, running and crocheting for a few days after all this...but it was a great challenge for me and I'm happy to have completed my goals and have another set of caps finished to share.

I'm back!

Most of the caps in box one

Many of you follow me on Facebook so you have seen my comments about continuing to work on Q's Caps despite not updating the blog. I have made quite a few caps and I asked if anyone knew of someone in need or a place I could donate. Thanks to my friends and family coming up with destinations, I was able to make a few for specific individuals and many more for specific hospitals, to share with a variety of people. Then I discovered something I already knew but it hadn't really hit me, the cost of shipping has gone up immensely. In fact, it seems that using priority mail is the best option but that means I really want to make sure I have enough to send (and cram in the box) to make shipping worth while. Again my friends came through and suggested I put a PayPal link on the blog, sent me a donation and posted to a group with my PayPal information. I received a couple of donations and was able to move forward on shipping immediately, though I'm still looking for cheaper or better ways if they should become available. My first box should have arrived at the destination yesterday, although flooding might have delayed the shipment, it will almost certainly arrive by today. I was able to fit 25 caps in that box and I feel that quantity is enough caps to effectively offer options for the patients and also makes the shipping worth while! I have decided to make a few more caps to put into my second and third boxes before I ship them, each has close to a dozen already complete, but I want to fill them up :)

A couple of notes to finish off this post:
1) My goal is to post at least once every month, feel free to remind me if I don't!
2) If you are interested in donating, I've put a PayPal link on the page (top right) for you to use, it's open to any amount (a box of approximately 25 caps costs $12.65 to ship)
3) If you have any great shipping ideas, ways to save, etc. please share that with me.
4) If you know of a person or a group/facility that could use donations, please let me know.