Published: December 24, 2008

Michele Hirata's life changed five years ago.

Her husband was in the Air Force in Monterey, Calif., and the couple was at a Christmas party. Another partygoer asked what she did for a living.

"I'm an artist," Hirata responded.

Only she wasn't an artist. She was a bank underwriter.

Her husband, Jeff, laughed.

But when 2004 rolled around, Michele Hirata had left that bank.

The blonde-haired woman with the easy smile has been an artist ever since. Her work hangs not on museum walls but on the heads of grateful souls worldwide. And her payment comes not in cold cash but in warm hearts.

Before that Christmas party, in August 2003, Hirata lost her mother to breast cancer, and she wanted to do something to express herself. So the next month, her mother-in-law taught her to crochet. She later taught herself to knit.

Six months later, "at 2 a.m. on a chilly winter night," according to her Web site, she used her new skills to find the answer to her mother's biggest struggle during her 17-year bout with cancer: losing her hair.

That's when Hirata made her first chemo hat, a toque made of T-shirt material that hugs the noggin and eases the frustration of living with a head injury or an illness that causes hair loss.

She's donated more than a thousand of the head coverings to folks as far away as China, Japan and England.

"This is the way I give back," said Hirata, who's lived in Montclair since March.

And the letters she receives in return are what drive her passion.

"I just wanted to tell you how special you are. What you are doing means so much to so many. Words could never express how special. ... You see I have survived cancer twice but now have colon cancer again. ... You are a ray of sunshine that can brighten a very dark dreary day when it feels like you have nothing to live for."

Each hat takes Hirata about an hour and 15 minutes to make. She can knit extremely fast, perhaps because of something that used to be a negative in her life.

Hirata calls her enterprise "Fat Thumb" because she has … well … fat thumbs. It's a medical condition that was fodder for childhood teasing. But she turned that negative into a positive.

"I just wanted to thank you for your sincere act of kindness. I love the hat you sent me! I'm still amazed by all the support and love I receive from complete strangers ... it makes me feel really good about the world we live in at times."

Hirata starts by tie-dying the T-shirt material. She cuts the fabric in a specific way and then knits or crochets it, depending on how it might be worn.

She's careful to avoid knots because they're uncomfortable for chemo patients and can cause blistering.

Her first hats had about 15 knots, but she perfected the pattern so that today's "Chemo Beanies" have only one knot.

"It's really so great that you've taken on this mission. It means a lot that a total stranger would go to that effort for me. Thanks from the bottom of my heart."

Hirata donates about two dozen hats per month to individuals, hospitals, cancer centers and fundraisers. People call or e-mail her with a story, and she mails them a hat. Each is unique, with the colors chosen specifically for the recipient. About 80 percent of the requests are for women.

"Thank you so much for the hats. I got your package on a particularly rough day, and smiled through my tears. I can't explain how moved I felt—it was like you knew that I needed a "pick-me-up" in a bad way."

Hirata's work has improved the lives of people in all kinds of difficult situations, and news of it has been spread mostly by word of mouth.

Some of her contacts are fighting illness. A single mother of two in Las Vegas who had lost her job was ready to give up to breast cancer and increase her life insurance so that her children would be taken care of after her death.

Hirata responded with letters and hats, but she didn't hear from the woman for more than a year.

Finally, she received a letter saying that the woman's entire life had changed. She was cancer-free and her hair was back.

Then there is Levi Krystosek, whom Hirata met when she and her family lived in Ocean Springs, Miss.

Levi is 2 years old and has Jansen's Metaphyseal Chondrodysplasia, a rare form of debilitating dwarfism. His mother barely took him out of the house because too many people would stare.

Hirata not only made a hat for Levi's overgrown head but she has helped raise money for his care and helped get him lots of attention. The Associated Press wrote a story about Levi, and he has gotten well wishes from such famous names as Bill Cosby, Regis Philbin and the band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

He now has a specialist on his case, and his family is awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval for a drug that could possibly cure all his symptoms.

Others have lost their medical battles. On Hirata's Web site, fatthumb.com, she details the story of a man who worked with her husband.

He developed a severe infection in the lining around his brain, and she made him a Fat Thumb hat to hide the swelling and drain tubes. His mother, who stayed by her son's side, was "so thankful," Hirata wrote.

"That silly little hat made a huge impact," she wrote. "She was able to see her son look like his old self again before he died.

"I pray that God blesses you and know that what you do creates smiles at a time when smiles can be hard to come by."

Hirata takes donations of material, but she doesn't sell any of her art—she also makes handbags, and her children, 7-year-old Gennifer and 5-year-old Tyler, help with other projects—and she even pays to ship her hats.

She once was approached at Disneyland by an importer/exporter who wanted to mass-produce the hats. He promised a hefty payday, but Hirata turned him down.

"I just didn't want that," she said.

Before Fat Thumb, Hirata was neither an art enthusiast nor a hat lover. But she has always has been accepting of others, perhaps because she grew up on a commune as the daughter of a hippie mom from Austin, Texas.

And, as if foreshadowing her current pursuit, she volunteered hundreds of hours earlier in life to the Alamo Head Injury Association in San Antonio.

"It's still tough and scary at times, but the fact that there are so many people that want to help out and be there for me keeps me going ... so thanks again!!"

Five years after that fateful Christmas party, Hirata is ready to pass on her gift in another way. She'll be teaching knitting, beginning Tuesday at Potomac Community Library in Woodbridge.

And, oh yeah, her husband isn't laughing anymore.

According to his wife, his standard line now is: "My wife's an artist, and I work hard so she can go out and change the world."

Staff writer Jonathan Hunley can be reached at 703-369-5738.