Been a while since my last post.  Taking a short break from my jewelry for something very important.  While in PA visiting our kids and grandbaby, we met a very special family from Quebec.  Tomy and Marie and their sweet little Angel Leila stayed at the campground for two months so that Leila could receive treatment for a rare type of cancer.  Knowing this loving and courageous family has been a true gift that we will always treasure.

After making several hats for our new grandbaby Abigail, I decided to make some for little Leila and sent them off to her when she got back home to Quebec.

One of these owl earflap hats went to little Leila and the other is baby Abigail’s.  This was a fun hat to do and can be made in many colors.  I used a pattern at repeatcrafterme.com and you can find it here

You might remember in a post last winter, I cut my hair and sent it off to Locks of Love, an ultra-worthy organization that makes hairpieces for disadvantaged children.  Since I was getting pretty good at making these hats, I was inspired to make a bunch of hats for other children going through serious health challenges.  So, I’ve been working away on creating several cheery crochet hats for special little heads.

Here is baby Abigail modeling the bunny hat.  I found the free pattern in a small book called “Hats & Diaper Covers” by Shelle Hendrix Cain (Leisure Arts, Inc) sold next to the yarn at Walmart.

 The patterns for the next hats were all found at Amy’s Crochet Creative Creations.  If you scroll down the right hand side of her site, you can find these hats and many others in the list.

This dinosaur hat pattern is the best I’ve seen on the net.  If you notice, I left off the earflaps and made them as caps.  Best not to have hanging flaps and pigtails getting caught in IV and feeding tubes.

A word about Amy’s patterns, sometimes you need to adjust them, so use your noodle as you follow them.  I think the next time I do this tiger, I will make his jowls smaller by two or three rows.  Also, I made yarn eyes instead of buttons to avoid any choking hazard.

Amy’s creativity in her patterns is undeniable genius.  These hats make me smile and laugh, and that is the goal, as I hope they will  for many children going through chemo.  I added my own freeform eyes to this pattern.

I have 22 hats so far, and still have plenty of yarn left.  I will try to get a group picture of the hats for my next post.  When I run out of yarn, I will take them to the nearest children’s cancer center. 

Here is little Leila wearing her owl hat.  😉  Isn’t she adorable?

Just finished this hat today for Leila and I will send off to her tomorrow.  It’s a sort of newsboy cap, with a French flair.  I wanted to give it plenty of color to be cheerful and have a clear visual message of hope.  I used the cloud applique pattern (found here) on knits and knots.  After I made the first cloud on the left, I freeformed the smaller one on the right.  I’m sorry, I do not have a pattern for the hat, I freeformed it.

UPDATE March 2014:  Mom and Dad just announced that little Leila is officially in remission!!  Yeah!!!!