Monday's Internet Edition, May 12, 2008.
Love comes in all shapes and colors — sometimes even with a puffball on top
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Features Editor
- Anything you can think of, Liberty Drive resident Norma Rule has probably done it — and that includes milking cows and picking cotton.
“I’ve never been still,” she said Tuesday afternoon with an impish smile. “I’m always busy, and I’m outgoing and I love talking to people.”
She loves helping people, too. But Rule’s idea of “help” isn’t money.
It’s better.
Every morning — sometime between 4 and 5 a.m. — Rule wakes up and starts knitting. Then she has breakfast. Later in the day, she might knit some more.
She’s working on crocheting hats she gives away to cancer patients.
To date, Rule has crocheted well over 100 hats — every one unique.
Some have eyes and a nose.
Some have a ruffle.
Others have a cuff that can be folded up.
Some have a puffball on top.
They come in all shapes, sizes and colors — flamingo pink and mud brown, cinnamon and orange, forest camoflage and black.
Some are multi-colored.
But they have one thing in common — they’re all handmade with love.
“I make three or four easily in any given day,” Rule said. “It keeps me busy, you know, keeps the mind sharp. If I worked all day, there’s no telling how many I could make.”
She has been crocheting since she was 10 — a time when she was trying to make clothes for her younger sister.
“I never had instruction at it,” she said. “I just make it up as I go along. Momma was always too busy to teach me, so I took up her needle and tried on my own.
“I couldn’t tell you one stitch from another, but I sure know how to make pretty things. It comes with experience.”
Pretty things is right — Rule has crocheted hats, scarves, slippers, and even sweater sets for countless people.
“Oh gracious, I don’t know how many sweater sets I’ve made,” she said with a laugh. “I suppose you could say near everybody in town has had one for them at some point.”
Rule recently lost a daughter, Kay Brinkley, to cancer. Brinkley died the evening of Oct. 13 — and the loss of her daughter was hard.
She is elderly, and has had problems with falling. She has broken her hip at least once, and is mostly wheelchair bound.
But her eyes and hands remain as sharp and deft as ever.
To help her with day-to-day activities, Rule has a part-time nursing assistant come to her home — and there’s a story to tell.
Personal care assistant Penny Woods has a granddaughter, Morgan Woods, who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of three. Morgan is now six.
Rule makes her caps and sends them to Morgan so she can take them to fellow cancer patients at the clinic she attends in New York.
“I make all sizes,” Rule said. “These patients, they’re kids and babies and adults. So when they lose their hair, I want them to have something pretty to show off.”
Last year, she made 40 hats, and this year made nearly 70.
“I’ve always made hats, but I was watching a program about St. Jude’s (Hospital for Cancer Research) on television, and I thought I should start making caps for those poor people.
“Now, every year I make them, and I will keep making them until I can’t do it anymore.”
(Oct. 27)