Charity Knitting Opportunity: Caps for Soldiers

***EDITED TO ADD: CAPS FOR SOLDIERS WILL BE COLLECTED THROUGH THE END OF DECEMBER – YIPPIE! GET TO KNITTING, FOLKS***

No matter how you feel about the war(s) America is engaged in, one thing is indisputable: there are American human people living, working, and fighting in foreign lands, and they need our love and support. When Barbara and Carla came into the shop the other day to ask if we’d be interested in putting out the call for Caps for Soldiers, it was a no-brainer. Emily and I both used to work at the Portland VA Medical Center, and anything we can do now to help our nation’s soldiers and veterans is like paying homage to the wonderful folks we used to work with and work for at the VA.

Barbara and Carla wrote this wonderful explanation of the project:

We need knitters! We recently became aware of a need for 2700 100% wool caps for soldiers being deployed to Iraq in September. If you can make even one cap before the end of August it would be a great help. Please read on to get the cap pattern and pictures and check out the videos of the Idaho organizer – Bea is a Rosie the Riverter from WWII and not deterred by seemingly insurmountable odds. We want to help her reach her goal and get a knitted cap into each soldier’s pack.

Bea Mitchell and her daughter, Janet Thaldorf began knitting these caps to help the mother of a soldier in Arizona and sent a bunch off last month. Bea wanted to make some for the soldiers from Idaho. There will be about 1,500 Idaho soldiers and another 1,200 from Montana and Eastern Oregon (116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team) leaving for Iraq in mid September. Their commanders would like to have a cap to put in each soldier‘s pack at the time he/she is deployed. These caps help keep the cold of the helmet off the soldier’s head in cold climate and can be soaked down with water and help cool the heads in hot climate. They are made of 100% wool yarn and the pattern is very simple to make. They have to be wool due to burn danger in case of fire or explosions. They must be earth tone in color, (beige, tan, black, dark green or brown) for the security of our soldiers. We will be collecting them on a weekly basis from Twisted. Please drop them off from time to time instead of waiting until the end if at all possible so we can get an idea where we stand in reaching our goal as time goes along. That would be very much appreciated.

On a personal note, Bea and Janet visited with a soldier at the Boise Airport recently and told him of their project. He absolutely insisted on donating some money to them to purchase yarn. When they protested, he got very serious and told them, “You don’t understand, I have to do this because I have been there and I know how much they need these caps”. What a confirmation for the importance of this project.
– Barbara Jennings and Carla Harwood, Portland knitters.

Here’s a link to a news story on this project, as well.

And, finally, here is a link to the pattern.