Honolulu resident Sandy Williamson is on a mission. She’s determined to knit 500 hats for needy children in Minnesota, and she’s not letting her fading vision, rheumatoid arthritis or cross-over hammer toes get in the way.

“I can knit without even looking at my loom,” said Williamson, 69, speaking by phone from her apartment in a senior citizen community on North Kuakini Street. “I make a hat while watching TV or walking on the Stride Cycle.”

She was out of breath, she added, because she’d just escaped being hit by a car while crossing the street carrying “three huge bags of yarn from (a discount store).”

She doesn’t have to buy much, as neighbors give her bags of yarn and money for shipping. “It’s a big ohana here that feels a part of what I’m doing,” she said.

Since she started in late December, Williamson has knitted about 440 caps for Hats & Mittens, a Minnesota nonprofit organization that distributed 35,000 hats to children last year.

Unable to wield knitting needles with her swollen hands, she works on a hand-held circular loom.

A video on the Hats & Mittens website inspired her. “There’s a mound of hats on a table, and you see the joy in children’s eyes, being able to pick a hat, make a decision for themselves.”

She makes bright, multicolored caps with big pompoms, “happy, funny hats a child will look at and smile.”

A Wisconsin native of Norwegian-Yugoslavian descent who ran a cleaning service in Florida before moving to Hawaii in 2002, Williamson has never forgotten the winters of her childhood. “On snowy days, we would come in with a wet hat, and it was virtually impossible to dry it out overnight for school next day.”

While kids need extra hats, some lack even one. “A lot of kids lose their hat or mittens in October and families don’t have enough money to replace them,” said Rebecca Sundquist, founder of Hats & Mittens, adding that children can’t go out during recess if they don’t have appropriate apparel.

Williamson’s grandson, 11, and his sister, 7, live in Upcountry Maui, where a warm hat feels good on a cold morning. He recently requested a hat in neon green, orange and blue, and Williamson shipped a box of hats to their home, where she will show the children how to make pompoms when she visits.

Knitting has proved therapeutic. It gives her a “warm and fuzzy feeling” and “keeps my fingers from freezing up.”

What happens when she finishes her 500 hats? “The clock gets rewound and I start over,” Williamson said.