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Knitting a soft touch for a friend
By Troy Brakefield, Staff Writer
In a back, windowed corner of the Allen Senior Recreation Center, a growing group of friends can be found most weekday mornings drinking coffee and conversing about the local happenings and how each other’s families are doing.
The group is mostly ladies with a few gentlemen nearby — aren’t there always? — and they don’t seem to notice if a small click of metal ever now and again interrupts the conversation every now and then. The ladies carry on with their tasks while commenting on the bobcat and her cub they think may have been mistaken for a mountain lion.
They have taken up this spot at the center since early August, knitting away with their large needles. They started their daily ritual as an act of kindness for a friend.
Joyce Schmitt had been undergoing her second round of chemotherapy for her lung cancer. She has had breast cancer twice in the past — the first time about 20 years ago.
Vivian Denbow — she’s the “idea person of the group” Jan explained — got on the Internet and found a pattern for a “chemo cap,” which has no seams but joins the yarn at the top of the headpiece.
“Well, Lena [Lauter] and I said, ‘A-ha! We’re going to start making chemo caps!’ and there went those arm warmers,” Jan said. Soon other ladies joined in the project, donating their yarn and knitting skills.
For those who can’t knit: no worries. Maria Greene pitches in by unrolling the yarn before it is wrapped around the wands. And those nearby gentlemen? They supply the funding for the increasing supply of yarn, cards and safety pins.
Since they began, the ladies, self-proclaimed “Chicks with Sticks,” have knitted nearly 900 caps. Each one takes between one and half to three hours to make; Waddad Tebcherany is the speed queen while Vivian jokes about herself often undoing hers before getting it right.
The caps range in size and colors; some have yarn with feathery strands sticking out and small tints of silver. Others are more traditional but extremely soft to the touch. All the caps have a business cards with “Joyce’s Chemo Caps” on the front and Jan and Vivian’s pone numbers on the back in case someone needs more caps.
When they had their first batch of hats ready, they went to McKinney Medical Center and donated them. Jan said one lady was coming in the door when they gave her one.
“She thought that was great,” Jan said.
After their initial success, Lena began making caps for children and later they made some targeted to men with darker colors.
Since then, they have donated caps to other hospitals with cancer treatment facilities in Plano and children’s hospitals in Dallas and Fort Worth as well as St. Jude’s in Memphis.
Their scrapbook shows several people who have accepted their gifts, nicknamed “Happy Cappers,” as well as those who have helped with their time and money.
Vivian said the caps themselves have ended up in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Michigan as well as with local school children.
The group reaches out in other ways as well. Joy Straw came by the center on vacation from Tennessee and was “drafted.” She has sent the pattern back to friends there who have started up their own group.
Although the ladies enjoy their time together, they don’t forget that it was their wanting to comfort a friend that started their efforts.
“It’s brought a lot of people together at the center,” Vivian said.
“People say, ‘When are you going to stop?’ and we say, ‘When there’s no more cancer,’” Jan said.
If you know anyone who would like to join the group and make Chemo Caps, please contact Jan Goble at 972-679-3338 or Vivian Denbow at 214-563-5253.
Contact Troy Brakefield at tbrakefield@acnpapers.com.
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