Extreme Knitting Redhead: A happy hat

Thursday, April 10, 2014

A happy hat

My trusty marathon cap was looking rather tried and faded; it used to be a lovely vibrant purple!

It's done almost all my marathons with me, through snow, sleet, torrential rain, & baking sun so has become a trusty old friend and I didn't want to get rid of it. So the only thing to do was to smarten it up a bit with some bright granny squares.

I used different colours of 4ply yarn and just joined them into a strip (using the join-as-you-go method) and then sewed them in place. It didn't matter that I obscured 'redhead' as I have that on my vest, front and back.

Simple!

I felt the back needed a little something too. Something that would make runners coming past me smile.

A simple granny heart fitted the bill perfectly. This has to be one of the easiest heart patterns and is one I've used since I was a small child (I love hearts!!!!) and came from a really old book of crochet I had which has long since disappeared.

I had to nip into London today to collect my race number and visit the press office and so I wore my ARUK tee shirt and cap and lots of people smiled and remarked on the crochet. Good, I wanted it to be a happy cap and that's exactly what it is now.

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.