The other day I came across an article by Tessa Miller titled, “How Clutter Affects your Brain (and what you can do about it).”

I am sure the article caught my eye because between my crochet endeavors and the home improvements and repairs that were necessitated by this past April’s plumbing event, I am not remotely close to up-to-date on my housekeeping, and I would really like to have some semblance of organization in the parts of my home where it is possible before August 1, my personal official kick-off date for my North Carolina State Fair project.

One part of my effort to prepare for this upcoming date included finishing all of the unfinished chemo caps for my friend’s sister.

I started by appliquéing the five flowers I had made to decorate the Mauna Kea cotton solace/comfort cap:

Once I had those flowers secured, I opened up my copy of Roberta E. Wong’s Hawaiian Lei in Crochet purchased on a long ago, very fondly remembered trip to the island of Maui.

I had been paging through it a few days earlier looking for inspiration for my state fair project, and I had come across a Kalakoa Lei pattern that would be perfect for the variegated silk yarn I had left over from the adult-size baby soft chemo cap I had just finished.

In short order, I had a matching Kalakoa lei completed. Here it is on it’s own:

and here it is with the matching hat:

Even with the Kalakoa lei completed, I still had some of the silk yarn left. I did not want it to get lost in the jumbles that are the yarn annex and the crochet empire, so I decided to pull out my copy of May Cheang’s Endless Love (string of hearts) pattern and put it to use.

Include in May Cheang’s directions are suggest hook sizes for various yarns. I got out my 4.0 mm hook and got to work. In short order, I had a good start:

and with a little more effort and some diligence, I had this long string of hearts that my mother will be able to wear wear double stranded should she choose to:

Now that the hats are packed up and sent off my “clutter” has been converted to useable objects that will make someone else’s life just a little bit easier.

As for what’s next, I need to find another unfinished project to tackle before it tackles me!