Marly Bird, Author at Marly Bird

Free Knit Chemo Cap Pattern for Breast Cancer Awareness

October 5, 2020 By Marly Bird Leave a Comment

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Therefore, it is the perfect time to make a knit chemo cap. This free knit chemo cap pattern is crafted in a beautiful pink hue to highlight the cause. It’s a good choice whether you want to whip one up quickly for yourself to raise awareness or you want to make a whole batch of them to donate to hospitals or cancer charities.

free knit chemo cap pattern and breast cancer awareness hat by Marly Bird

What is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?

As the name suggests, this month raises awareness about breast cancer. Many of us know someone who affected by this disease. If you haven’t, though, then you might not realize how prevalent it is.

Here are some key breast cancer awareness facts:

Over one quarter of a million women in the United States receive a breast cancer diagnosis each year.
Every year more than 40,000 American women die of breast cancer.
Although breast cancer primarily affects women over age 50, younger women can also get the disease.
In fact, men can sometimes get breast cancer as well.

If any of those facts surprised you, then you can see why raising awareness is so important.

It’s especially important to raise awareness about breast cancer in 2020 due to the complications of COVID-19. People with breast cancer may be at particular risk for COVID-19. Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic has delayed some breast cancer treatments. In particular, chemo has become increasingly important as a treatment option when other treatments, such as surgeries, face delays.

What is a Knit Chemo Cap?

A knit chemo cap is a functional gift of love that shows support and care for someone undergoing cancer treatment. When going through chemotherapy, people lose their hair. Their heads can blister, feeling painfully sore. The lack of hair can make them more prone to feeling cold. Plus, they may feel self-conscious about their baldness. Chemo caps help with all of those things.

A knit chemo cap is made with soft yarn that will soothe the sensitive skin rather than irritate it. People craft the hats with love, intention, and care. Some people recite prayers or mantras while knitting chemo caps; similar to a prayer shawl, this infuses the item with compassion and well wishes. When the recipient receives and wears the knit chemo cap, they feel this care. Knowing that the crafter, and a whole community of other people, is behind the creation, they may also feel courage as they battle breast cancer.

Raising Awareness With a Pink Knit Hat

Pink is the color for breast cancer. Throughout the month of October, you’ll see people wearing pink ribbon pins and pink clothing to raise awareness. Of course, you can also wear these throughout the year, to let people know about the important issue of breast cancer at any time. A pink knit chemo cap like this one is a great way to do that.

You might choose to use this pattern to make:

A single knit chemo cap to wear yourself; anytime someone comments on it, that’s a great excuse to share some information for breast cancer awareness
Full set of knit chemo caps to wear as a group – one for every person in your family or in your book club; the more people wearing them, the more likely strangers will ask questions and then you can raise awareness
Caps to donate to people going through cancer treatment; while anyone can wear the pink knit chemo cap, people undergoing chemotherapy are the primary intended recipients. Donate to your local cancer center, hospital, or charity. You can donate one or many. You may include a note of strength and courage with your donation.

Charities for donation include Knots of Love and Halos of Hope.

About This Pink Knit Chemo Cap

Like many of you, breast cancer impacted my life. My friend Nicole McMaster died at a young age from breast cancer complications. I have created this pink knit chemo cap in her honor.

Nicole absolutely loved knit cable stitches. Therefore, I’ve chosen to highlight those as the centerpiece of this free knit chemo cap pattern. The way that the cables intertwine on this hat is a visual metaphor for the way Nicole’s life intertwined with mine and so many others on this earth, touching us deeply in the short time that we had her here.

This is a seamless, bottom-up knit crochet hat pattern worked in the round. The pattern is available in three sizes.

You can also find the pattern on Ravelry.

Has breast cancer impacted the life of someone you love? Share something about the experience in the comments to honor those affected and raise more awareness.

Crochet Animal Pillow Book Review

February 26, 2020 By Marly Bird Leave a Comment

I’m here today to share with you a really fun new book of crochet stuffed animals. These aren’t just regular stuffed animals, though. These are animal-shaped pillows. It’s always fun to make a unique twist on something right? So why make a typical animal when you can make huggable crochet animal pillow projects instead?!

Fun Animal Pillows by Kristi Simpson

Inside Fun Animal Pillows you will find 9 crochet animal pillow patterns. These are designed so that you can stitch them for little ones. However, you can also make these for teens or even for yourself. They make surprisingly cute decor, not just for nurseries, but also for living room couches. And they’re great car pillows, too. As a result, these crochet animal pillow patterns make great birthday gifts, baby shower gifts or surprise gifts just to say I love you! Learn more about the book and what you can find inside its covers below.

[Read more…]

What’s The Best Temperature Blanket Stitch?

January 30, 2020 By Marly Bird Leave a Comment

There are so many things to plan out when you’re going to make a knit or crochet temperature blanket. You have to choose your temperature blanket colors and yarn. Moreover, you need to pick the time period and location for your data. You also need to choose a temperature blanket pattern or select the temperature blanket stitch that you want to use. Oftentimes, people choose to make a temperature blanket with single crochet, row after row showing the temperature for each day. Knitters might choose a simple garter stitch. However, don’t be afraid to step outside of the box and come up with a different temperature blanket stitch for a more interesting design.

*THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. BY CLICKING ONE OF THESE LINKS AND MAKING A PURCHASE A SMALL PORTION COMES BACK TO THE BLOG. THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL NOT CHANGE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF THE BLOG.*

What's The Best Temperature Blanket Stitch?

Temperature Blanket Stitch Patterns

With so many options of stitches for your blanket you will want to consider a few things. If you are making a crochet temperature blanket, then you’ll want to stick to shorter stitches in order to keep your blanket from getting too long and still recording all 365 days. Here are some suggestions of great stitches for your temperature blanket.

In Crochet:

You want to choose a simple, straightforward, short crochet stitch for your temperature blanket. However, this doesn’t mean that you need to stick to single crochet (even though it’s a perfectly good choice.) Here are some other great stitch options

In Knitting:

If you’re making a knit temperature blanket, you’ll also choose a straightforward design. Some great basic knitting stitches that work well in rows include:

Motifs and Other Designs

If you prefer to work something other than straight lines you could use one of the following techniques.

corner to corner crochet
mini squares (knit or crochet, one square for each day)
chevron stitch pattern
knit lace pattern

Resource: Temperature Blanket Tracker!

Want to grab an AMAZING temperature blanket tracker? Just use the button below to get access to the document. Make sure that you download a version to your own computer/Google Docs.

Additional Temperature Blanket Resources:

Start here to learn how to knit or crochet a temperature blanket. Other helpful posts:

How to Choose Temperature Blanket Colors and Yarn

January 28, 2020 By Marly Bird Leave a Comment

Once you decide that you want to make a temperature blanket to record a year or time period then you will have a lot of decisions to make. For example, you’ll need to choose a time period and location. Additionally, you’ll need to choose your temperature blanket pattern. Finally, you’ll need to choose your temperature blanket colors and yarn. Picking colors and yarn for your temperature blanket is important because you need to know how many colors that you will use, what range of colors you will need, and how many balls of yarn you might need. This post is here to guide you.

BUT FIRST: Check out our detailed guide for how to knit or crochet a temperature blanket.

How to Choose Temperature Blanket Colors and Yarn

How to Choose Temperature Blanket Colors (and how many!)

Before getting started, you should check the high and low for the year in the location you will be doing the blanket for. This will allow you to see the full range of temperature changes and then you can break it down from there into sections. More information on temperature blanket location and time period here.

Most often, people pick between 8-10 colors to represent their temperatures. Each of these colors will represent between 5-12 degree changes. This all depends on how much of a difference you have between your high and low for the year.

Although you will see that many temperature blankets are done with rainbow colors, having red be the warmer temperature and blues being the colder temperature, you can pick whichever colors you enjoy. Pick a palette that you love, something that will fit your home. Even if that means having your hottest day of the year in a shade of blue, do what works for you! It is really just about showing the difference throughout the time period. You can also work the blanket entirely in different shades of blue (or whatever color you love)!

TIP: Remember that you will be working on this blanket for an entire year. Make your color selections something that will excite you throughout the year.

Choose Temperature Blanket Colors and Yarn

How to Choose The Right Yarn for a Temperature Blanket

Because you will be using a range of colors, it is suggested that you pick a line that has many choices to give you variations. There are quite a few great options that you could use for your temperature blanket.

No matter what yarn you choose for your blanket, be sure that it is something that is easy to get. I would hate for you to get halfway through your blanket to find out you don’t have enough yarn and then you can’t get a specialty yarn, or you don’t have yarn in the right dye lot. Some great examples of good yarn to choose include:

These are all worsted weight yarns. However, you could choose a different yarn weight. Learn more about yarn weights here.

How Much Yarn Do I Need For My Temperature Blanket?

It is hard to tell exactly how much yarn you will need for this project. Just like meteorologists, we can’t definitely tell what the weather will be during the year so we need to make a guess. I suggest having at least 2 balls of each color that you are going to use as a starting point.

Let Your Temperature Blanket Pattern Guide You

If you’re using a knit or crochet blanket pattern, then let it guide you in choosing your temperature blanket colors and yarn. The pattern will tell you what yarn weight and colors go well together. You can vary from this but it’s a great starting point.

Get Our Temperature Blanket Tracker!

Make your temperature blanket easier on yourself by grabbing our AMAZING temperature blanket tracker? Just use the button below to get access to the document. Make sure that you download a version to your own computer/Google Docs.