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!

Three Square Appeal

In my sidebar I've had a button from LILY (Love in the Language of Yarn).  LILY appeals to anyone who can knit or crochet to make up just THREE eight-inch squares and mail them to their location in Turkey.  Volunteers then make all the squares into blankets which are subsequently distributed to Syrian refugees. 

 

I kept thinking of making up the squares, but kept putting them off in favour of some other project.  So when I finished the zigzag cushion cover, I decided that now was the time to knit up my squares and send them off!  I knit the first square with plain old garter stitch to get the sizing right ... but, ho hum, boring.

 

 

Then I decided to knit one in moss stitch.  How I hate knitting moss stitch, knit one, yarn to front, purl one, yarn to back, knit one ... you feel like you'll never finish!!  But of course I did.

 

I wanted to make the squares all reversible so that there was no wrong side.  I checked in my knit stitch book for the next squares ... mock cable was more interesting to do ...

 

I realized I needed something detailed to keep my interest here, so it was then on to four-stitch check ...

 

 

The fun continued with tumbling blocks (hmm, one row of blocks looks a bit on the small side) ...

 

 

And finally I decided to do something really fun (although it isn't reversible), and went with some cable work with the heart cable ...

 

 

I haven't blocked any of them at this point, so hopefully all that wonkiness will straighten out during that process.  I really enjoyed knitting the heart cable, I just think cables are such a cool design feature. 

 

So that's six squares ready to send to Dianne in Turkey to be knit into a larger blanket and hopefully provide some warmth to someone next winter.

 

 

The details for knitting the squares can be found on LILY's blog here or just click on the button on my sidebar.  LILY also accepts knit or crochet hats!

 

I enjoyed making these six little squares, and will definitely make another batch after these are on their way.  Next time I'll use a less 'girlie' colour.

 

Linking up with Stash Buster Challenge.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Wendy