As the weather cools, knitters start making chemo caps

Published 5:00 am Friday, October 16, 2009

October is the month of Halloween, Columbus Day and, in Bend, chemo caps. It’s the month hundreds of knitters go to Juniper Fiberworks, pick up free yarn and a pattern, and create caps for local cancer patients who’ve lost their hair to radiation and chemotherapy.

For Deb Annear, Juniper Fiberworks’ owner, the cap project is the result of the happy confluence of two local women’s groups and Annear’s own history. She moved to Bend just about nine years ago from the Seattle area, a cancer survivor whose recovery included giving up a lifestyle centered on “things” for one “centered on the things that fill your soul.”

At the time, the Sunriver knitters group and Bend’s Assistance League chapter were knitting caps as part of their own community service projects. Annear and two women from the groups, Pat Anderes and Bunny Cools, expanded the groups’ projects to one that’s open to any knitter in the community.

The caps project made perfect sense for Annear. Earlier, she’d temporarily lost most of the hair on the back of her head to radiation for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which the National Cancer Institute describes as a cancer of the immune system. “It’s like adding insult to injury,” she now says. “One day you have hair, and the next day you don’t.”

The caps, made of the softest yarn Annear can supply, cover the baldness and help keep their owners warm.

This year brings a slight change to the chemo caps project. For years, Juniper Fiberworks supplied knitters with a yarn called Chinchilla, a rayon chenille that’s soft and loopy and comes in a variety of colors. It was unavailable, however, so the store is testing three different yarns, one that resembles fine polar fleece, one a fuzzy product and one of bamboo. She will, she says, gather data on the three before deciding what to do next year.

Gathering data no doubt comes naturally to Annear. She put her degree in electrical engineering to work for 10 years at Boeing and, after cancer treatment, for another year at one of Bill Gates’ companies. It was the time during treatment, however, when she was sick from radiation and spent hours huddled on her couch, that brought her to Bend.

Too tired to do much of anything physical, she says, she spent her time thinking. She’d spent much of her stint at Boeing working for things, not, she now says, for what’s really important. In the latter category, she puts friends and family, and, I suspect, a standard poodle named Kelso. Not long after, she decided to move.

Her timing was fortuitous. Bend’s only knitting store was closing down, and the current knitting craze was in its earliest days. In fact, a book and a magazine article helped persuade Annear, who in addition to a degree in engineering has one in retailing and business, that a yarn shop might be just the ticket.

The chemo caps project is one way Annear gives back to her adopted home. She supplies the yarn, no unsubstantial donation for a small retail shop, and her customers supply the knitting skills. The caps can be knitted by advanced beginners, though those who work at the store are always willing to help a knitter over a rough spot if need be. And, while October, national Cancer Awareness Month, is when the project is officially under way, Annear will hand out yarn and get caps back for weeks beyond that.

From a knitter’s standpoint, one of the best things about the project is that the caps stay right here in Central Oregon, going to cancer patients who are our neighbors, friends and relatives. They’re simple to make and provide a nice break from more complicated stuff, to boot.

In the project’s early days, the Sunriver knitters would come to Bend each October, have lunch and go to Juniper Fiberworks for an hour or so of communal knitting on the caps. Now, Annear says, most knitters find life too hectic for that. Instead, the yarn goes home, and the caps come back. It’s efficient but surely not as much fun.

If you’re interested in contributing a chemo cap or two, Juniper Fiberworks is located at 416 N.E. Greenwood Ave. Last year, the store’s patrons created nearly 400 of the warm, soft caps.