Woman knots an act of love

This corrects an earlier version of the story.

Christine Shively didn’t know the bald woman she saw coming out of the hospital’s cancer ward last summer, and she hadn’t crocheted in more than 30 years.

Still, with time on her hands, and the woman’s image fresh in her mind, Shively went home, brushed up on her skills and began crocheting brightly colored “chemo caps” she would then donate to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Knots-Of-Love, the organization Shively founded in her Newport Beach home, was born within days.

Giving back to the community was nothing new to Shively. She was the outgoing president of the Adoption Guild of Orange County and was looking for a way to “touch the lives of strangers.” She just had no idea she’d be the one to start something.

Shively had learned to crochet from her mother and grandmother when she was 6, and said the first cap she made “would have fit a bowling ball,” but she wasn’t giving up.

“I [finally] made one that fit my head perfectly, and the next thing you know I had made 20 of them.”

She also enlisted the help of friends, who were more than happy to start “knotting.”

Lynn Gravesen is Shively’s friend and tennis partner. When Shively mentioned she had been talking to friends about helping out, Gravesen jumped at the chance to participate.

“I thought it was a great idea. I had been looking for something to do, and this just fell into place,” she said.

Gravesen makes the caps while she’s watching TV. It keeps her hands busy, and it’s time well spent, she said, because it’s going to a good cause.

“Personally, I had no idea the need for something like that was as great as it is,” Gravesen said.

Shively wanted every cancer treatment center in Southern California to distribute her Knots-Of-Love caps. She started her own website, made calls to cancer centers, hospitals and oncology offices, focusing on places that didn’t already have caps similar to what she was making.

By the end of 2007, Shively’s caps were available at 35 cancer treatment centers and oncology offices, and now the demand is increasing. Luckily, both Shively and Gravesen are getting pretty good at making a cap in about an hour. Gravesen said she averages about 30 caps a month, and her speed will come in handy since Shively announced in March that the group’s goal for 2008 is to give away 10,000 caps to cancer patients who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy.

“I think that the 10,000 caps for this year is a goal that we can make,” Gravesen said.

“We have a very dedicated group of people, and recently there was a Breast Cancer Conference at Saddleback Hospital. Christine asked to get 200 caps, and we thought that was a high number, but everybody came through, and we got way more than that.”

The website generates a lot of donations, Shively said, and knitters and crocheters across the country are making caps and shipping them directly to her home. People feel like they can make the caps when it’s convenient for them, she explained, and without feeling obligated to deliver a certain number by a certain date.

“People crochet and knit whenever they have time. Some days stuff just appears; people have sent what they’ve done and the UPS guy is ringing my bell.”

The caps are made to be one size fits most. Shively said a lot of people like to sleep in the caps because their heads get cold at night, but that patients will probably want something a little lighter now that we’re moving into the warmer months.

“The ladies are starting to make more with cotton yarn, and we always want to make caps that are soft, to go against a bald head,” Shively said.

When Linda Torr got involved with the Knots of Love project last summer, she had been cancer free for 21 years, and wanted to help Shively make the chemotherapy caps.

Instead, she became one of the group’s first recipients.

Torr owns 10 of the caps, coordinating them with her Nike workout clothes, and said what she likes most about them is their softness and wearability.

“It gives me an opportunity to take a break from the wig, and keeps your head warm,” she said.

Every chemo cap is tagged with a signature red heart that reads “Knots of Love.”

Shively said coming up with the name was easy. Each stitch in the crocheted cap looks like a knot, and every cap is made with “lots of love.”

Torr was at the doctor’s office one day when a woman noticed her cap and said she would love one in exactly the same color. Shively honored the request, and Torr was able to give the woman her cap the very next day.

Shively is providing a service, Torr said, but it’s a personal one that reflects love, tenderness and kindness.

“It means a lot for someone to take the time and care enough to create something that really helps someone,” Torr said.

Knots-Of-Love is in need of more people to help keep up with the demand for caps. Caps must be made of new, handmade, washable, soft yarn (cottons, acrylics, or natural fibers). Donations of yarn are welcome as well. Contact Christine Shively at (949) 903-3738 or go to www.knots-of-love.org

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at sue.thoensen@latimes.com.