An Aside in Helping Out

I've posted before about LILY (Love in the Language of Yarn) and their mission in providing knitted/crocheted blankets to Syrian Refugees.  Their link button is on my side bar.  The coordinater Dianne Jones puts out a request for anyone with a few moments to knit or crochet three simple 9-inch squares and mail them off to her in Turkey ... the "Three Square Appeal".  I knitted some squares up in the summer, and it cost me $10 Cdn to mail ten squares to her.  I've knitted up some more squares now and they're ready to ship out.  This time I'm also including some small hats.

 

I've been wanting to knit up a small doll with dangly sort of arms.  This morning I checked out Ravelry for some doll patterns and came across "African Comfort Dolls".  Intrigued by the simple look of these dolls, and the name, I clicked on the link, which brought me to this page.  An organization, ICrossCanada collects these adorable dolls and uses them for packaging to send HIV drugs and medical equipment destined for Africa (rather than the usual bubble wrap or packing peanuts).  How ingenious!!  When the packages arrive in Africa, the dolls are handed out to local children ... many of them in the HIV clinics.  I thought this was a clever and creative way to achieve safe packaging and provide a bit of comfort for a small orphan child on the other end.  With a bit of hopping around, I believe you will find an address for another organization Drops of Grace in the United States that also collect these dolls for the same purpose. 

 

Source:  http://www.squidoo.com/african-knit-dolls#module3332911

So, not that I've dropped everything to work on this ... I do have a small rug nearing completion ... I just felt compelled to share these two charitable efforts with you today. 

 

Click on this link if you want to learn more about LILY.  There is information there about the size of squares and the mailing address.

 

Click on this link if you want to learn more about knitting African Comfort Dolls  Includes a pattern for knitting or crochet and mailing information to send to ICrossCanada (in BC).

 

I haven't made the dolls, so can't vouch for the pattern at this point.  Once I do try it out, I'll post about it again.  I noticed a couple of comments from people on the site that questioned the size of needles, etc., so an experiment may be in order first.

 

That's all for today folks!

 

Thanks for stopping by ... Wendy :)

 

PS:  I hope I have all this information correct, my apologies if I've there's anything missing, and please let me know if you have problems with any of these links!