Life can change so quickly.  My friend Sarah went from having a cold that would not go away, to enlarged lymph nodes, to getting a blood test for mononucleosis on Monday, to getting a Leukemia diagnosis over the phone on Thursday, and getting a call from the University of Nebraska Medical Center for immediate admission on Friday afternoon.

She’s been in the hospital all weekend prepping for a month of chemotherapy.  In preparation for her forthcoming chrome-dome, I’m knitting her the Shedir chemo cap in a deep pink Debbie Bliss cashmerino. This pattern is only available in pdf as a part of knitty.com’s special cancer awareness print issue from 2004.  It is a super soft yarn, and the cap is knit on SIZE 3 needles.  Cast on last night, and I’m eleven of  eighty-three rows in.

I’ve learned chemo caps are special, because they are very tightly knit to prevent heat loss (just like your hair is supposed to do).  There is usually not a flippable brim either, the brim has to go just to the top of the eyebrow and cover the ears.

I’m knitting it on a very long pair of circular SIZE 3 needles, using the magic loop method to knit in the round.  The knitting blog Purlwise has this handy tutorial on magic loop knitting.  I’m pretty sure the size 3 needles I have are Addi Turbos, because the cord is very thin, and loops very easily for this technique.

Pictures SOON!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Shedir Chemo Cap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.