Parcels!

Well girls - I have just spent two whole days re-organising the office a bit and now have all of our yarn stocks separated into boxes labelled with whats inside! This will make it a whole lot easier for me to make you up packs of yarn to send out when you need it! If any of you have knitting machines and like to make our wee things by machine I do have quite a few cones here - let me know if you want any sent out as they do take up a lot of space and there aren't many of them suitable for hand knitting unless we use two or three cones together to maybe knit blankets (the colour schemes would be rather nice don't you think!).

The exciting news is that I have just parcelled up 30 jumpers and cardigans for Feed The Children! I will get them off in the post this week - our first donation to them! I also have five bags of things for Blythswood Care - two are used clothing, one is bric-a-brac for their shops and the other two are filled with blankets, scarves, hats, mittens and other garments to be sent overseas!

I have also packed a box for Shelley at preemiesuk with the items for her washbag challenge (she wanted to repay the kindness shown to her father when he was in intensive care by donating some filled washbags for patients who are brought in suddenly) and also some wee hats and cardigans for her charity as well. We also sent twenty of our knitted 'boobs' to Peterborough Hospital as Shelley had a request for some there. The other eighty were shipped off to Tommee Tippee headquarters (much to the delight of Avril Deane who has now got our wee Jenna's photgraph - complete with her bucket of boobies - pinned above her desk!). These ones will be taken to the Midwives conference next month and hopefully will all be snapped up by the health professionals attending for their classes (in exchange Avril is asking for donations for Breast Cancer Charity so we are helping in two ways here!).

Our Easter Challenge is going really well too - we now have 40 hats and 14 dolls and bears in the challenge box! No boobies in the box yet but I am off to start on those right now! (I know some of you have been working on these too but I don't count them till they arrive here in the Office so hopefully the 'boob' target will shoot up in a week or two! :0).

Once the letters start to come back in from the hospitals we will have a better idea of the needs there are out there. We are very lucky to have a new member who is able to sew beautiful burial gowns for our little lost angels which will be such a comfort for many parents. We also have one or two willing to knit angel pockets or gowns - it is very hard and for most of you an impossible task - I know my very fist angel pocket was soaked in my own tears before it was finished and my dear husband asked me why I was doing it if it hurt me so much. The answer was easy - if it was my baby I would want to give the little mite some dignity and care before letting it go off to live with the angels. Fortunately these days there is so much that can be done and the majority of prem babies do survive but at least when the unthinkable happens groups like ours are here to provide some support - well done to all of you for being with us and working so hard to help others :0)

Right enough crying over the pc - there is work to be done! Hopefully by next week these targets for our Easter Challenge will have grown - and now that I am organised your requests for yarn and patterns can be sent out even faster!

Keep up the good work girls - you are all real stars!

Any visitors reading this blog please think about joining us or tell all your knitting and crocheting friends about us - we love to have new members - there are 103 of us all working away all over the UK at the moment and we have meetings in Kelty Commuity Centre on Mondays from 1pm to 3pm and in Kirkcaldy at the JRD Trust, 9 The Esplanade (the old YWCA) on Mondays from 7pm to 9pm as well. You can visit our website lovinghands.org.uk for more information and contact details :0)

Oh - and watch out for the February issue of Let's Knit! magazine as we are featured in there again - we are getting to be known more and more - not bad for a group that only started in July last year don't you think! :0)