For 10 years, Pat Anderson has been running a nonprofit from her home, spending upward of 40 hours a week knitting, packaging and sending products to her valued network of women, all by hand.
Anderson, 92, retired from work in 2015, but a passion kept her on her feet: one that supports breast cancer survivors who’ve undergone mastectomies, like she did after being diagnosed at 74.
“Just look at how enthusiastic I am after 10 years,” Anderson said. “You know, this is by far the best and most rewarding project I’ve ever done, and the one I’m most proud of.”
Her passion project began 43 years after moving from her home state of Minnesota to California. In 2015, Anderson was introduced to the concept of hand-knit prosthetics after her daughter sent her a photo of knitted bust forms she’d seen in a shop. The product lit a fire in her, Anderson said, as she researched the knitting pattern and thought, “I can do this better.”
In 2017, she began sending samples of her Busters Project knitted bust forms to hospitals in San Diego and received referrals from survivor after survivor. Since then, Anderson has gifted Busters to more than 4,000 survivors across the U.S.
“The whole purpose of the Busters Project is to help restore some feminine dignity and normality for those women who have undergone mastectomy,” Anderson said. “Simple as that.”
Instilling confidence in survivors
Having one’s breasts removed is an incredibly vulnerable and invasive experience, Anderson said.
It can leave women feeling as though they’ve lost a part of themselves – a physicality that is linked to their femininity, sense of self and sexuality, she said. The Busters Project recognizes this complexity and has created a bond between the thousands of members nationwide who have received a pair of Busters and support the mission.
So what are Busters exactly? Busters are bust forms made from soft knit and padding material that can be placed against the skin, inside a bra, as an option for those who’ve undergone mastectomies to keep the shape of breasts under clothing, as they desire.
Busters range from size double A to double D and rest comfortably against the chest. They are machine washable, seamless, lightweight and more comfortable and affordable than any silicone prosthetic Anderson has ever come across – a design obviously created by a man, she said. Busters come in pastel colors of pink, blue, yellow and more, but never beige or anything dark.
“This is about the most feminine project you can imagine,” Anderson said.
Any breast cancer survivor can request a pair of Busters from Anderson free of charge, though they are encouraged, but not required, to send in a donation after they’ve received the product, which helps pay for materials to create the next pair of Busters. It functions as a sort of pay-it-forward system, according to Anderson.
“These are presents,” Anderson said. “These are personal gifts from one survivor to another.”
Serious knitters
Anderson is no “little old church lady,” she said, and running the Busters Project is not meant for the enthusiastic beginner knitting hobbyist. Knitting the way she does is something that requires years of experience, dedication and care for the craft.
“This is a serious operation because it solves a really serious problem,” Anderson said. “Those darn silicones are the number one source of misery and stress for every single woman who has undergone a mastectomy.”
At age 3, Anderson said she was constantly fiddling around with yarn, string and fabric. Then, during World War II, at the age of 8, Anderson learned to knit from her mother and grandmother, who belonged to a knitting auxiliary, creating sweaters, vests, bed socks and more.
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“I was sitting around watching them, and the next thing they did to shut me up was teach me how to do a long-tail cast-on and gave me a ball of yarn,” Anderson said. “I spent one whole summer casting on and ripping out. I wore out that ball of yarn.”
She established Spin Shuttle Studio in 1971, a textile and textile teaching studio, where she taught weaving to students in her home in Roseville. In 1982, she moved to California, where she and her daughter, Chris, worked together. Chris was a shepherd, Anderson said, and the two created wool yarn from the sheep, which Anderson spun.
Anderson also developed patterns for hand knitting and worked on woven and hand-knit projects, which the two sold, along with their yarn, “Ewe and Me,” at the Boardwalk Crafts Market in Poway, Calif., until Anderson retired.
“My students in Roseville, if any of them are still around, will remember me exclusively as a weaver,” Anderson said.
By 2019, Anderson was joined by two other stellar knitters who have been an integral part of the Busters Project, Pat Moller and Jane Rilly. The two are close friends of hers as well, she said, something that tends to happen when people are passionate about the work they do, something bigger than themselves.
“We were a really tight-knit group,” Anderson said. “It’s amazing, I was talking to Pat the other day and she said when she first started working with me, she thought it was just a knitting project. But once we got into it, and we started getting feedback from women in the mainstream and finding out what we were actually doing, she said, it became more of a calling.”
The next step
At 92, Anderson is looking to pass the mantel to a new team of volunteers. She’s lived in Minnesota now for a little over a year and deemed it “serious knitters country,” something California was not, she said.
“I couldn’t take it any further in California, because I just couldn’t find good knitters, and this calls for really top-notch technique and knitting skills,” Anderson said.
Her dream would be to have a team of six volunteers with knitting experience from childhood, especially “women who were taught by their mothers or grandmothers and have been seriously knitting ever since.” They would be asked to produce two pairs of Busters a week and meet with the team monthly for business meetings and to purchase materials.
“With personal knitting, or recreational knitting, you have no rules, anything goes, you can do whatever pleases you, but studio knitting is different,” Anderson said. “There are strict, stringent rules that have to be met: legal, technical and ethical.”
Experienced knitters interested in volunteering will be trained by Anderson in her home in Chisago County for about a month to learn how to create Busters from start to finish. Once the team has been trained to meet artisan standards, Anderson said, they can work independently and find their own pacing. While two pairs a week are expected, the quota is not set in stone, she said, and no one will be shamed for not meeting it.
Anderson said she also needs someone who can take over her managerial role. Someone with small-business experience, preferably with a connection to the arts, who knows how to update a webpage, she said. She wants someone who understands her determination to keep the Busters Project on a reasonably sized scale, who will not commercialize it, as it would reduce the quality and detract from its origins, she said.
“And we always could use women who serve as advocates to help spread the word, because this is all word of mouth,” Anderson said. “I never run an ad and I never solicit donations, except when I send out Busters.”
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Leading the Busters Project has never tired Anderson, she said. She is just as passionate about it now as she’s ever been.
One thing that keeps her going, she said, is the thank-you letters she receives in return.
“Thank you for helping me feel like a woman,” they say.
Or, “This is an answer to a prayer.”
Other recent messages: “God bless you,” “I feel like a girl again,” “I feel normal,” and “the smallest things do actually make the biggest impact.”
“It’s not just an object,” Anderson said. “It’s something that becomes personal to their dignity. That’s the thing about the Busters Project, everybody wins.”
Busters Project
To learn more about the Busters Project, visit spinshuttlestudio.com.
Those interested in joining the team can reach out directly to Anderson at spinshuttlestudio@gmail.com.
