Hello World!

I'm partial to using Hello World as introductory entries. I always picture in my mind's eye a little alien stepping through the door to earth, and coming out onto the top of a high mountain looking down at all the nature and people on earth, and waving his little arms and saying "Hello world!"

Today is not a particular significant day as far as days go. It is not the first day of my residency, though that was not too long ago; it is not the first day I decided to start journalling regularly, that was several years ago; it is also not the first day I found my calling in life, that either has already happened, or has yet to happen. But, today is Labour Day where I am; it is also the only day off I get for this long weekend due to call.

So, without many reasons at all, I have decided to start a blog about residency, and scrub caps. I found that I'm getting better at making scrub caps! When I first started about a year and a half ago (was it really that long ago?!), I didn't have a sewing machine, so it was pretty tedious. I also had difficulty finding a good pattern for free online. The pattern I started out with wasn't the best for what I was looking for, but it did teach me about the basic components to a scrub cap. Before that point, I actually have never looked at how a scrub cap was put together, but was convinced that I wanted to make them since I'm hopefully going to be in the OR often in the near future. So, the first cap took about three hours (instructions here). The second one I kind of got around to try about 6 months ago (instructions here), but found that it didn't really accommodate my hair very well. So I was quite at a loss until about a couple of months ago, when I found this pattern. This was the closest to what I needed, and gave me a very good base and shapes to start from. I then looked at my friend's caps to see how they were put together, and made some modifications on the pattern I found. The end result was a way of assembling a scrub cap from a Fat Quarter and a solid coloured fabric for the top!

Like this

There was still some kinks to be worked out, such as the optimal position to place the elastic band so that it's useful to hold in hair, but not too tight. Of course, you could argue that the elastic band is useless, since there are ties at the back anyway. I would agree with you currently. However, I expect that as my hair grows longer, using the elastic and ties combines would give me more control over keeping all of my hair in the cap! We will see.
My favourite cap thus far comes from a yard of Marvel superheroes fabric I found the other day.

Why yes, I do have Thor on my head!

How long will I continue to write in this blog? I'm not sure. Probably as long and as often as I make scrub caps!

Now, for some post-call scrub caps:

The fabric is a lot softer than what I have been using. I like it a lot, though I worry about how well it'll handle being washed repeatedly

It's never too early to start preparing for Christmas! Luckily I made this one post day call instead of night call. Had to take it apart a couple of times, and really tried my patience. Lesson learned: always pay attention while pinning, and especially before sewing!