Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Charity of the Month: Beautiful and Bald Movement

It is April 7th, which means it is time for this month's charity, Beautiful and Bald Movement. This charity is a personal favorite of mine because of the support they offer to women and children with hair loss due to cancer treatments, alopecia, or trichotillomania. This nonprofit organization was founded by a few women, who were personally responsible for spearheading a social media campaign with the goal of creating a bald Barbie doll for little girls. Since the start of their campaign, Mattel has made 10,000 bald Barbies, which were donated to children's hospitals, MGA made a collection of 6 True Hope dolls in their Bratz and Moxie doll lines, which were available for purchase through ToysRUs, and American Girl started offering their custom dolls without hair along with allowing girls to send their dolls to the American Girl hospital to have their hair removed. Besides spearheading the social media campaign these women have also created and sent out thousands of Dome Decorating packages.

Each Dome Decorating package contains headbands, scarves, stickers, and temporary tattoos for decorating the recipient's newly bald head. The women are constantly in need of donations for these packages and ask crafters for fun headbands, headwraps, etc. to be made for these packages. Last year I donated several handmade headbands, crocheted from my own original pattern, to the Beautiful and Bald Movement. However, I cannot find the photo collage I made using the pictures of these headbands. I am actively looking for the picture and will upload the photo as soon as I can locate it. This year I have made a headband, using another original pattern, that better fits current trends and this pattern is the pattern I am sharing below.

Crochet Ribbed Headband

Materials:
Red Heart Super Saver yarn, color of choice
Crochet Hook Size G
3 Buttons, for closure
Flower embellishment, optional

Directions:
Row 1 - Cast on 8, single crochet all stitches, turn
Row 2 - Single crochet in back loop only, this is the start of the rib stitch, turn
Row 3-4, Repeat row 2, turn
Row 5 - Increase in first and last stitch of row, turn
Row 6-8 - Repeat row 5, turn
Row 9-53 - Continue rib stitch, no increase, turn
Row 54 - Decrease in first and last stitch of row, turn
Row 55-57 - Repeat row 54, turn
Row 58-63 - Continue in rib stitch, creating button loops over 5 rows
Cast off

Finishing:
Cut off remaining yarn and weave in loose ends. Attach buttons to cast on edge so they line up with button loops on cast off edge. Attach a  flower embellishment.


These headbands are quick and easy to make, which makes the headbands a perfect donation for the Beautiful and Bald Movement. Information about requesting a Dome Decorating package or donating your headbands can be found on the Beautiful and Bald Movement's website, which is linked above. At the time of writing this post the website was down, but hopefully will be working again at time of post.

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