MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio - - At 90 years old, there are many things that Barbara Lowe can no longer do, but age hasn't slowed this great-grandmother from knitting soft pink, blue and multicolored caps for newborns leaving Hillcrest Hospital. She has done so for almost 10 years.

"To this day I've made 2,072 hats," Lowe says with a huge smile, working her needles as she speaks. "I love doing this."

Wearing a rhinestone-accented bright red blouse that matches her upbeat personality, Lowe is talking in her cozy two-bedroom apartment in a high-rise senior building on Mayfield Road, directly across the street from Hillcrest. Relaxed in a stuffed easy chair, she occasionally glances down to make sure the cap she's knitting is coming along smoothly.

"I've been doing this for so long that if I make a mistake, I can fix it pretty quick," she says.

Lowe taught herself to knit while she was in high school and she has knitted for most of her life. For years she knitted caps and blankets for babies born into her family, including her own two daughters and their offspring, as well as babies of friends, co-workers and so on. Each cap takes about four hours to finish.

In 2008, an extended family member who worked at Hillcrest's maternity ward asked Lowe if she ever considered knitting caps for newborns to wear when the babies go home with their families.

"I told her, 'No, but that's an excellent idea,'" remembers Lowe, "So I called the volunteers' office (at the hospital) and they said they were interested. That was the beginning."

Lowe's late husband, Milton, spent a lot of time at Hillcrest before he died in 2001, so she has an affinity for the hospital.

"My husband was sick for a long time and I practically lived there," she adds. "They were always so good to me."

Lowe isn't there to meet mothers and fathers when their babies' heads are tucked into her hats, so parents have no idea who she is. She knits hats and then turns them over to the maternity ward a batch at a time.

Lowe accidentally saw one of her hats on television. A TV station was at Hillcrest doing a story about a newborn. She happened to be watching the news, and she knew the baby being featured was wearing her hat because it had her signature turned-up brim and knit flower.

"I was thrilled because I finally got to see a baby that's not in the family wearing one of my hats," she says. "I don't think I slept that night. I was so happy."

Mary Bartos, registered nurse and director of Women's & Children's Services at Hillcrest, said caps are typically put on infants immediately after they are born and then after their first bath until their temperature is stabilized. Proportionally, infants' heads are bigger than their body size and they potentially can lose heat through their heads.

"With Barbara's hats, after their (the infants') first bath, we have something lovely to give that's from a volunteer," Bartos says. "It's a nice gift for the parents. But we also use it as a teaching moment, which is important for us to do. We want to educate parents about how important it is to keep their baby warm."

Parents learn that after babies leave the hospital, they should only wear a hat when they're being taken outside in inclement weather, Bartos continued. Parents learn that hats should never be worn when a baby is sleeping, and the rim should be above the eyes when a hat is worn outdoors.

"So this is a nice opportunity to give them a great gift, but like so many other things involving safety with infants, there's a right way to use it (a hat) and a wrong way," Bartos says.

Hillcrest also gets caps donated by St. Bede the Venerable Catholic Church in Mentor, The Preemie Project, Kathy Ciccone, the grandmother of a former neonatal intensive care unit infant, and many anonymous donors, Bartos adds.

On a recent Thursday morning, Dr. Evamaria Anvari and her husband, Reza, of Shaker Heights, were preparing to take home their newborn twins, Pulad, a boy wearing a blue cap, and Parisa, a girl in her pink cap. They are the couple's first children.

"It's wonderful that someone is doing this," says Anvari, who is a nephrologist at Cleveland Clinic's main campus. "The hats are very pretty. I'm going to take pictures of them wearing the hats and then put (the hats) away."

In another room, Kimberly Pasquele and her husband, Mike, were packing up to take home their newborn, Vincent, in his warm blue cap.

"Any gift to a baby is nice, but when someone makes it that's really special," says Pasquele, of Concord Township. "We're going to keep this for him in his baby box."

For many years Lowe has bought baby yarn -- which is lighter and softer than regular yarn -- from a nearby Michaels craft store in Mayfield Heights out of her own budget. The manager of the store, knowing what the yarn is for, gives her discounts, she says. Relatives and friends give Lowe Michaels gift cards to support her work.

But it has become more difficult for her to afford baby yarn, Lowe adds. She recently began taking two medications that are very expensive.

"So what I've been doing to make a little money is sewing for ladies in the building who have arthritis and can't do it themselves," Lowe says. "I tighten buttons and hem pants. That's my baby yarn fund."

Lowe says she not only knits for babies because she enjoys it, but also because the activity keeps her mind sharp.

"If you keep busy, age is just a number," she adds.

Lowe says she likes that, in some way, she was there at the beginning of 2,072 lives, and that some of those babies are now 8 years old.

"I feel like they (the babies') parents gave them their first gift, which is life," she adds. "I feel like I'm giving them their second gift with these little hats."