Purposeful knitters cover little heads with warmth

LITTLE ROCK — “Supposedly knitting is the new yoga,” says Robin Reynolds, punching the Up button outside the glass elevator inside the lobby at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

I won’t press her on the comparison. The 60-year-old former Clinton organizer and city school board president has earned a little more latitude on her declarations than you or I have. Suffice it to say knitting is not quite as aerobic, and I told her so.

“It can be. This Thanksgiving for the first time I combined knitting and golf. On the first 9, I shot a two over-par, and I thought, ‘This is the trick!’”

But on the back 9 she had five triple bogeys and, well, sic semper serendipity.

brain freeze

One thing about knitters - and for the purposes of this story, let that word stand for those who crochet, too - they like to be moving, be it in front of the tube or in a waiting room.

It’s not idle fidgeting. There’s an old adage that goes, the man who chops his own firewood warms himself twice. Perhaps the same can be said for knitters.

“It’s wonderful for arthritis,” Reynolds says.

It’s just as wonderful for Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

In winter, 2006, the director of volunteer services noticed too many babies and youngsters greeting the cold just beyond the hospital’s double sliding doors without covered heads. She could mobilize the loose knit community of needle workers to donate their time and work to the hospital to distribute freely.

Now, giving hats away to those in need wasn’t new to the hospital. In the previous seven years, Reynolds counted, more than 7,000 hats had been collected and distributed to pint-size patients. Other items like blankets, booties and “boppers,” too.

In the first year of Knitting for Noggins, though, four times that many hats were received.

In September of that year, the hospital threw a Knit-a-Thon and welcomed Susan B. Anderson, author of Itty Bitty Hats: Cute and Cuddly Hats for Babies and Toddlers, andthe hospital put a live webcast of the seminar on the Internet. A “party kit” was created for knitting circles to replicate the workshop. Two years later, the hospital put a free, downloadable book of patterns on its website.

Today, the number of hats received is bumping up against a quarter million collected and dispensed and inscrutably, one of the meccas for knit-hat donations is Great Britain, Reynolds says. One high school even made a short documentary about their participation in the program.

CEREBRAL WARMING

The cumulative effect is greater than warm noggins alone. When little ones arrive at the hospital, many make a beeline to the little red wagon that holds the hats. They select one that’s pretty, soft, says something about them - one or all ofthese.

Earlier this year, a knitter told Reynolds that she had attended the funeral of a children’s hospital patient. Her hats had been lined up on the casket.

There is a dark lining to this silver cloud.

Then, too, there’s the potential for contagion.

Eddy Shores of Cave Springs has been crocheting since he was 10. His parents operated Shores Hardware there in town, and weekdays after school he’d go next door and visit with the ladies there who were all crocheting and listening to the radio. That’s how he learned, and, 65 years later, he keeps in practice. He donated 273 hats last year to the hospital.

“I’m very nervous, and it’s very hard for me to sit and not do anything. So when I watch television, if I can make something with my hands, I feel like I’m not wasting time.”

He’s also freelancing, you might say. Through a friend of his wife Dorice’s family, he learned of a 10-year-old girl with leukemia in Jackson,Miss., for whom he could send a cap. She liked it so much he offered to make her more. She asked if he would make one lime-green and pink.

“I’ve made her five or six caps. She said she likes to give things away when she’s getting treatments. It makes her feel like she’s doing something nice … so I’m spreading my crocheting and hats to other parts. I’ve always loved to share things.” To learn more, visit ArChildrens.

org/volunteer and click on “Knitting for Noggins.” The website has tips, patterns, and a donor registration form.You can also call (501) 364-1825.